Past Tense
by captainodonewithyou
Summary: When Milah reappears in Storybrooke, Killian and Emma must determine how and why before more ghosts are torn out of the past. (pirate)
1. Chapter 1

It is still new to them both, this thing they have, even though it has been years. She isn't sure it will ever be something she is used to. The kisses stolen in the alleyways between buildings, filled with more passion than Emma has ever known. The subtle knowing smiles shared across first the diner and then a table, keeping them in on their own private joke. The hesitant way he takes her hand in his the first time and every time after, weaving his fingers delicately between hers and holding tight as they walk together down the street, warmth burning straight through her winter gloves. And she likes it. She likes how he looks at her as if she hangs the stars, even if it is far from the truth. She likes how he touches her, always gently at first, as if he is frightened that she might evaporate beneath his fingers. She likes the way he flirts, innuendo after innuendo and she likes knowing that he is hers. She likes _him_. And after all this time, longer now than she has ever been with anyone (three years, and Emma Swan is not one to count anniversaries) he still _so clearly_ loves her.

"Granny still bloody watches us like she's waiting for you to come to your senses at any moment," Killian is telling her with his usual touch of careful amusement.

They are making their morning rounds (Emma's morning rounds, if she is being technical, but she does not know how to shake the pirate, and if she is being honest with herself, does not want to). It has become a bit of a pattern, really. Breakfast with Henry and Killian before breaking off separately (or sometimes together), to meet at the station and have another coffee and start Emma's daily route. She likes it usually, but since the cold has set in (winter, this time and not Elsa—she'd made quite certain) it has been especially nice having Killian tag along, having another warm body. He does not say it aloud but she knows it is because he is always left feeling concern for her, which of course annoys her immensely—but the many happenings keep her nervous for him as well, so having him with her serves the dual purpose of keeping an eye out for him and having company that she is learning, however slowly, not to mind.

And you never knew what could appear in Storybrooke.

"I guess she'll be watching us for a long time, then," she responds with the slightest of shrugs, and an even smaller smirk in his direction. At one point it would have bothered her a good deal, the town nosing in her personal affairs. But somewhere along the line, she thinks (and certainly doesn't glance at the pirate bobbing along beside her), things had changed. Her words earn a sideways smile, and his fingers find hers with ease and give a comforting squeeze.

And no, she certainly has not become tired of it yet.

They turn a corner and she is so distracted, glancing out sideway across the beach that she does not notice his stop until his hand suddenly clenches in hers, pulling her to a halt. She immediately whirls to face him.

"Killian, what—"

His expression quiets her. His eyes are wide and churning somewhere between rage and fear and clouded confusion, mouth frozen with parted lips, brow tightly knit. She takes a sharp inhale.

"Killian?" The voice is sudden and in front of him and Emma quickly turns to follow it.

Her eyes fall upon a woman, a tall brunette with wide grey eyes that make her think of watches and Tallahassee and buttercup tattoos and a million broken promises and the realization nearly empties her lungs and sets an ache into her gut that feels like the aftertaste of a good punch. She forces her attention back to Killian, back to his expression calculating and adding and his eyes are moist now and she wonders how fiercely the storms are raging within him when even _she_ feels as if she'll be sick.

And finally, finally he speaks, his hopeful voice cracking meekly and grasping angrily at her heart.

"Milah?"

She isn't sure what to do as he steps hesitantly closer to her, and her to him. He is still clutching her hand, but the woman is reaching to his face with long fingers and when they brush his cheek he shudders visibly and Emma wants to disappear because it feels so intimate and she feels like an outsider.

"Oh God, Killian, it's really you!" The other woman (she can't think her name yet, can't allow that realness) is visibly shaking, and it's only then that Emma realizes her clothing is soaked through and dripping. She takes the few steps separating them and very nearly throws herself into Killian's tense form, wrapping her arms tightly around him. Emma's heart patters dangerously against her chest and she grips at the fabric of her jacket above her stomach until the woman steps back from the unreciprocated hug and looks at Killian with a furrowed brow laced with confusion.

"You cannot be here," he says, with the slightest shake of his head, as if trying to shake free of some form of curse. "You're dead. Milah, you're dead."

She can tell he is only trying to convince himself and she thinks it could certainly, certainly be jealousy speaking… but she does not like this at all. His hand is shaking within hers and it makes her stomach ache.

"Well I certainly feel quite alive, dearest," the woman answers with a breathy, frightened laugh. But all Emma hears is 'dearest' and she absolutely hates herself for seeing red. The woman is fearful, small and shaking beneath her clothes. Her eyes and focus are trained entirely on Killian—Emma is quite certain she has yet to see her and it doesn't help her opinion of the woman.

She imagines those eyes and a voice feeding her dressed up lies and all she knows is that if this woman hadn't abandoned him…

_She probably would've ended up dead, or good as. _Emma pounds the reminder into her brain. She was married to Rumplestiltskin, the Dark One, one of the most frightening men Emma knows—and she knew well he'd been worse. The woman… Milah, she forces herself to accept, was only a victim of circumstance.

So was her son.

So was she.

His eyes have not lifted from her and her insides are screaming.

"So… you're the infamous Milah?" Emma asks stiffly, and her voice shakes far worse than she anticipates. The woman finally sees her with a start, eyes taking her in head to toe to where she still clasps Killian's hand.

"I am," she answers and her shaking is getting near impossible to avoid.

_She is the sheriff and this is her responsibility and she needs to get herself the hell together._

"Maybe we should get you inside," she has to force the words past her lips, "And try to work out where the hell you came from."

xxxxxxxxxx

When they arrive back at their apartment (the first, best place Emma can think of, just enough out of the way, just enough seclusion, because God forbid Rumple learn of this new apparition), it is a race to get the woman dry. Killian is still in a haze of sorts—he hadn't said two words the whole walk back—but he mutters something to one of them about a hot bath and disappears into the bathroom. Emma guides her in a few moments later to find a bath already drawn, and leaves her with a towel and some of her clothes.

Emma seeks him out, weaving through the kitchen and peering into the bedroom before she finds him. He is slumped on the couch, utterly still, staring at his hands as if they are the only thing steady in a spinning room.

"Killian," she touches his shoulder, fingertips dancing cautiously up his neck, across his cheek, through his softly mussed hair, dark as midnight. When he finally looks at her, his eyes are hooded and dark and Emma nearly breaks because they are strong, the both of them, made so by the ghosts that are meant to _stay_ as such and it isn't _fair_.

"How?" the word comes out a bark, an accusation almost, and Emma halts her gentle caress of his hair, her heart giving the slightest start.

"Are you blaming me?" she asks as cautiously as she can, trying to press back her automatic defensive edge. She tunes into every line of his face and twitch of his eye, waiting for him to lie to her, to even try—she can tell by the attention in his own eyes he is doing the same.

After a tense moment of silence, so heavy it nearly makes the air hard to breathe, his eyes pool deeper. Before she can see anything else he drops his head into his hands and heaves a heavy shaking sigh that seems to fill the room and make the air even thicker.

"No. I… I apologize, Emma. It's only… It must've been magic. Correct?"

She waits for him to finish, although it takes him a good stuttering moment, and she can see the effort it takes him to re-meet her gaze in the tense form of his broad shoulders. She takes a soft breath, running her fingers back down to rub gently at the tension.

"I think so," she answers, still careful, still watching his expression. When he is silent again, the same pained and heavy silence from before, that is when she decides to take the chance. "She's Rumplestiltskin's wife? Neal… Neal's mother?"

He knows the connotation and his breath catches ever so slightly—she can practically see the memories playing through his head in his eyes.

"Aye," he tells her. Then, "Rumplestiltskin… he was her murderer as well as her husband."

This Emma knows. It is why the apartment seems the safest place to harbor the woman. She cannot imagine what might happen should the imp learn of the woman's presence.

"I'm sorry, Killian," she tells him, still rubbing careful circles into his shoulders. "I'm sorry you have to… relive this."

It's an awful choice of words but no others come to mind and she kicks herself as soon as it leaves her tongue for the way the lines in his face seem to deepen and his eyes dull.

"I used to be able to manage not getting attached," he tells her plainly, "Made quite a pattern of it. Till you bloody came along and wrecked it all."

She smiles softly, relieved at the gentle twitch of his lips and lowers herself to the couch, hip to his. She turns her head into his firm shoulder and feels a shiver course through her when he presses his nose into her hair and breathes her in. They sit that way a moment, taking strength and giving it (as they so well do). And then he speaks.

"She was with child."

His voice is barely above a whisper, as if he can barely get it passed his tongue and she is sure that if his lips weren't brushing her ear she would not have heard him. An icy chill starts through Emma because this was a whole new level of horrible, desperate pain and it makes her ache for him entirely.

"Killian…" is all she says, because nothing else, no words, can possibly articulate what she wants (what she needs) to say to him. She turns her head off of his shoulder so they are forehead to forehead. His eyes are closed but the pain is so clearly etched into the lines of his face.

Instead of stuttering through meaningless words, she untangles her arms from between them and laces them tightly around him, pulling him close. It takes a moment but he reciprocates, dragging her into him and holding her tight.

"I love you," she tells him carefully into his shirt. They are not a couple who uses those three words carelessly, both painstakingly aware of the power they hold. So when they slip from her tongue she knows that it means everything to him, and his hold around her tightens till she can barely breathe and she loves every moment of it, seeping into her and telling her wordlessly that he is _alright_ and that he can get through this _with her_.

It is her turn to be his strength.

They are still in each other's arms when the bathroom door clicks and Milah steps uncomfortably forth, looking around the room in a slightly confused awe that she tries very clearly to mask as disinterest. Emma's clothes hang limp on her, and although she knows it is absolutely _ridiculous_ it makes her feel strangely bulky.

Emma touches her lips to his shoulder before disentangling herself from him and dragging herself to her feet, feeling him follow behind her.

There is certainly a good deal of work to be done.

Killian moves tentatively forward, around her, scratching behind his ear with his wooden hand. (He'd taken to wearing it since they'd moved in together, and she teased that she'd domesticated the great Captain Hook. The shy smile that played at his lips every time she said the words was everything). Emma knows that he lost the hand when he lost his love and she partially expects her to say something about it but once her eyes lock in on his face they no longer stray.

"Killian, what's happened?" she asks, and the slightest crack finally appears in her shell of confidence as her voice quivers slightly on his name.

He is silent, and Emma forces herself forward, gently presses her hand to the small of his back. Assures him she is there. His muscles are tense all over again and she runs her thumb in loose, gentle circles. He lets out a heavy breath and Milah's eyes flicker suspiciously between her and her arm and she drops it back to her side immediately.

"You… died," he forces the hoarse words past his lips and the woman's brow furrows, eyes widen, full attention back on him. "You died 200 years ago."

Another pause.

"If I am dead," she says cautiously, eyes again flickering about the room, "Then how is it that I am here now?"

"We were rather hoping you could tell us that."

His voice is tight and clipped and where Emma expects his regular flirting innuendos to slip forth—teasing 'darlings' and playful 'loves'… his voice falls silent.

And then her phone rings.

She considers ignoring it a moment but she is on the clock and this is Storybrooke and she lets out a tense breath, reaching into her pocket and hitting accept before holding it to her ear. (Ignoring the look of confusion on Milah's face as she follows her movements because her patience is beginning to wear thin).

"Yeah?"

"Emma?" It's Belle, and her voice is uncertain. "You, er, probably should come to the library. There's a man here. Looking for you. He says…" she pauses, and Emma realizes she is holding her breath, "He says he is the sheriff."


	2. Chapter 2

_It's not him. It cannot be him. Just because Milah came back doesn't mean…_

She is struggling to believe the excuses her dazed and spinning mind is already frantically coming up with, struggling to listen to the rationalization that she is usually so practiced in. All she can think of is wide grey eyes, breathless kisses and her heart flips.

She gives a slight start at a sudden noise from beside her, and Killian is hurriedly bending down and grabbing for what she realizes is her phone before she even registers that she has dropped it. She takes a deep breath as he holds it out to her, brow furrowed.

"What's happened? You've gone pale, love," he mutters, glancing warily at the phone in his palm when she doesn't take it immediately. "Is everyone well? Has someone been hurt?"

She swallows hard, pulling herself out of it and forcing herself to reach for the phone. Milah is looking between the two of them, still curiously, but looks swiftly away when she catches Emma returning the look.

_It's not him. It can't be him._

"Everyone is fine, it's nothing. Some lunatic is at the library claiming he's the sheriff," she pauses, biting the inside of her cheek and glancing at her shoes before looking back into his eyes, so deeply filled with concern, "I've uh… gotta check it out."

The tilt of his brow tells her that he does not believe a single word she's told him, but he does not push the matter.

"We ought to go then," he says instead, and she shakes her head abruptly, trying to ignore how his eyebrow shoots up even further.

"Someone has to stay back with her," Emma nods towards Milah, who fully meets her gaze for what she thinks is the first time since her arrival. She isn't sure why it leaves her feeling uneasy.

"Or she could come along," he counters, and she shakes her head again.

"And risk Gold finding her? Sound plan."

She hears the sharpness in her tone a moment too late and cringes as the hurt registers deep in the blue of his eyes.

"Please, Killian," she says, softer now, trying desperately to make up for her momentary lapse of patience. "See what the two of you can work out about what is going on. Let me do my job."

He finally nods uneasily, and she turns her attention to Milah, searching for something to say to her. Her eyes are still trained on her, they look _just like_ _Neal's, _ she can only manage the slightest nod before she turns and reaches for her keys and slips out the door.

xxxxxxxxxx

She calls David on the way to the library. Not because she is frightened or because she thinks anything is out of place, she tells herself. But because backup is smart and backup is reliable.

Right now she could certainly use _something_ reliable.

When she pulls up in front of the building, though, he is already there pacing. She does not like the look on his face one bit.

She takes another heaving breath before slipping out of the bug and cautiously approaching him. He gives her a single look-over and concern immediately fills his expression.

"Is something wrong, Emma?" he asks, and she lets out a frustrated puff of air because she is beyond sick of hearing those words.

"Long day," she mutters, and manages a shrug, "Please say you've got good news."

"Depends on what you classify as good," he answers sheepishly, and the look in his eyes tells her more than words possibly could.

Her day is about to get a whole hell of a lot longer.

xxxxxxxxxx

"You are with her now?"

It is no more than a moment from when the door closes that she speaks, turning on him with carefully focused eyes, folding her arms uncomfortably across her chest.

It is strange seeing her in Emma's clothing, past and present somehow thrown frantically together in ways they were never meant to be. It leaves him more than slightly uneasy. But he's felt uneasy since she reappeared, since she embraced him in the street and since he realized that it all was truly happening.

_It is all so bloody wrong._

"Aye."

He is shocked when a smirk forms on her face.

"I cannot say I ever imagined the day _you'd_ court a sheriff. I suppose your days of pillaging are quite over, then?"

Even though she is smiling, he can see the touch of sadness still there, sloppily masked from view. He doesn't know what to say, how possibly to remove the deafening awkwardness from the air. So instead of answering, he motions to a chair.

"Perhaps we ought to discuss what's happened," he says stiffly.

The smile drifts from her lips as she obliges, holding her arms tighter against her chest as she steps to the seat and lowers herself tentatively into it, staring back up at him through her eyelashes.

He doesn't mean to be cold, though he knows that he is. This world and life she's been brought into… it is not one she is meant to be in. That at least is quite apparent to him. He feels remarkably selfish for the thought, but he hates that his past has come back forth, the past he'd worked so long and hard to overcome, to finally reach a solid place, a happy place, for one of the first times in his life.

The darkness he'd left behind is a dangerous drug, and the last thing he wants is to regress.

He remains standing, watching her, still struggling to grasp at all the pieces.

"It was when Rumplestiltskin took my heart, wasn't it?" she asks gently as she bites her lip, "That's when I died?"

"It was," he answers, and remembers the instructions Emma left him with. To find out what he can. He takes a shaky breath, "What is it you remember? After that?"

She smiles sadly, and shifts ever so slightly.

"Nothing, Killian," her voice is soft and careful and nearly grown up, quite unlike the wild lass he'd once loved, "That is why I reckoned it must've been my last moment."

"Ah."

Silence again creeps awkwardly between them.

"You don't need to be so bloody distant, Killian," she finally says, uncrossing her arms and dropping them to her lap, "I may've been dead but I wasn't born yesterday. I know you've gotten over me, dear."

He grinds his teeth together and dedicates every ounce of his strength to holding on, to keeping quiet… but it isn't enough. The frustration simmering in him is quickly heating and bubbling up in the pit of his stomach until the words are spilling angrily from his lips.

"And you think that was bloody easy, do you?" he snaps, because she says it so calmly, so simply, like it's nothing more than a change of tides. "You think you died, carrying our child at that, and I just moved on to the next lass with pretty eyes?"

"Killian," she concedes, standing back to her feet slowly, moving to reach towards him, but he is stepping back from her, still not finished.

"200 years, Milah. That is how bloody long it has been. For 200 blasted years I mourned you every passing day. Sought to avenge you, using every resource available to me, Milah, for 200 years you never left my damned mind," his head is spinning and his eyes are burning with tears but she stops moving toward him, instead watching him quietly with wide eyes beneath lowered brows. "Aye, I moved on from you. But you'd best never say that I _got over _you."

"200 years is a long time, my love," she only speaks when she is certain he is finished, when the silence has stretched nearly to the point of discomfort. She watches him carefully, reading his expression. "Is she who changed that, then?"

He does not have to ask her who _she_ is referring to before he nods.

xxxxxxxxxx

He is sitting on the edge of a seat in the library like a nervous teenager as she approaches. Her heart is pounding in her chest. It's him, David has assured her, and the moment she sees his mussed hair even from behind she knows it's the truth.

It takes all her strength to coax herself forward, move herself towards him and when she finally comes up to him and his wandering eyes land on her they light up with a relief that almost makes her insides stop twisting. Almost. His face is tired and lined and every atom of her being aches because he is somehow alive and she is sure that today is the worst hell she's gone through yet.

"Graham," she mutters, studying him carefully and swallowing a hard lump that rises in her throat. She'd told David to stay outside, to keep watch, and Belle had left as soon as she'd arrived.

"Emma," he answers, the corner of his lip twitching ever so slightly upwards. It makes her heart stutter and she quickly looks away, a feeble attempt to halt the overpowering flood of emotion pouring down over her. The memories that come with the smile are just too much, too _painful _(she's never managed to enjoy a bear claw the same way since).

Now in her avoidance of his eyes she notices the wrinkles in his clothes. The same clothes he'd been wearing that night. Same vest she'd clung to as she sobbed out of control until she felt she might be sick. Same button torn slightly out from her frantic attempts to resuscitate him. Same _everything._

An unwelcome chill races down her spine.

"Emma, I needed to tell you something," he says, pushing up onto his feet. She bites her lip when she finds her eyes on his, that awful night still so damn clear in her mind.

She would be lying if she said she did not still have nightmares about his lifeless grey eyes, about helplessly breathing air into his empty lungs.

She shivers.

"So do I," she mutters, mostly under her breath. He raises his eyebrows quizzically at her so she continues, "You'd better go first."

He twitches slightly and nods, meeting her eyes, and she'd forgotten just what they did to her, so wide and open and honest—they open a direct line to her already weeping heart and nearly split it in two.

"I should've told you sooner. Should've told you last night, probably. Around… you know…" she does know and she's beginning to feel nauseous all over again. "But, well. When we kissed, something happened. I had these… memories… return. And this is going to sound absolutely insane, and I know we decided it was insane, but Emma-"

She begins to interrupt because she knows where this is going, knows she has to tell him just what he's missed, but he raises his voice to finish.

"I remembered Regina taking my heart."

Whatever words she had prepared slip off of her tongue. Suddenly her legs feel strangely numb and _natural causes _suddenly sounds a hell of a lot like bullshit. She sees red.

_How the hell hadn't she realized sooner._

"She… took your heart? She had it?"

"Er, has it, I reckon," he answers with a slight chuckle, and she can see the relief that so visibly fills him when she doesn't call him crazy and she is absolutely tearing herself apart internally for it all over again. She still _hates herself _for everything that happened that night.

But now she has someone else to blame. She wants nothing more than to drop everything, to drive the bug out to Regina's house and confront her, to tell her that she knows, that she hasn't just gotten away with it after all.

That for once she will face the consequences of her actions.

But there are more pressing matters and she forces herself to swallow back the white hot rage that is nearly blinding her.

_Damnit._

Emma bites her lip hard, bringing herself back a moment. She _has _to finish this.

"Um, about that…" she mutters, and has to squeeze her eyes shut before she can continue because she refuses to watch the light leave his, not again. "You… died, Graham."

When she reopens them, he is only staring at her, smile slowly sinking from his face.

"I… died?" he repeats after a stretching, painful moment.

"It's been six years," she confirms softly as he sits heavily back down into his seat, dazed.

"Is it just me?"

The question takes her off guard, and she raises an eyebrow.

"Do you know something I don't?"

"Well I definitely can't be the only one Regina had the heart of," he answers, and she feels like a deputy all over again. Even if she knows far more than he does, she knows she could certainly use his help, no matter how strange it feels to have him suddenly there, suddenly back again. She is capable of using her resources, no matter how weird. Or, more appropriately, dead.

"There is only one other, so far," she tells him carefully. Iit is selfish but she doesn't think she wants to get used to him being there, really, not when they know so little. Not when he could be gone all over again at any given moment. "We've been keeping it on the down low but if there are more…"

"There might be a pattern," he concludes, still very clearly in a slight daze, eyes zoned entirely out.

"Exactly," she agrees softly and studies his distant expression carefully. "You don't have to jump right back into this, Graham. You were dead. That's gotta take some sort of period of adjustment."

He shakes his head, and seems to simultaneously shake himself out of it.

"Something is up," he says, and smiles halfheartedly at her. "It's my job to work it out."

She swallows the biting _was _that immediately rises to her tongue, instead forcing herself to nod tensely.

"I'll get the others to meet us at the station. Just… give me a second."

When Killian answers the phone she very nearly bursts into tears, swallowing them back three times before she speaks (and it leaves her quite glad she has gone between the racks of books for the privacy to make her call).

"What is wrong, darling?" he asks, because the idiot can even read her damn silence and it only makes her more emotional.

"Nothing," she lies, somehow forcing the word past the rising tears. She grasps at the fabric of her shirt above her lower, aching stomach, trying to push back nausea. "Just… will you meet me at the station? With Milah."

"Are there others?" he asks, and she nearly nods before she remembers he cannot see her.

"There's one," she tells him, voice catching. She hurries to speak again, hoping he doesn't notice. "Just meet me at the station, okay? Be careful."

"Aye."

She hangs up before he can continue or she bursts into tears.


	3. Chapter 3

Oh my goodness! This story has gotten so much positive feedback it is unbelievable. I've been hanging on to these ideas for a while, and let me just say I am ridiculously glad I finally decided to try to conquer this one. You all are so kind, and I cannot thank you enough for reading this and for leaving me all of your fabulous feedback. It means so much to me. I never imagined this being so well liked, and every new comment, follow and favorite just leaves me in absolute awe. More is coming! I sincerely hope that you continue to enjoy!

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><p>The list of people who know is growing—perhaps a bit too quickly for Emma's liking.<p>

David comes to the station with her despite her assurances that she can handle it alone, that she is just going to look into a few quick records and save the brunt of the case for tomorrow, after she's at least been able to sleep on it. Until she's at least begun to be able to wrap her mind around this. She hates that he knows her so well, nearly as well as Killian. Dave assures her that anyone who knows her at all would know 'saving it for tomorrow' is bullshit. She isn't quite as sure but she is tired of arguing and folds, agreeing to allow him to follow behind them.

When they arrive, Killian is standing huddled at the door (and Milah is beside him in her _red leather jacket _now, damnit, and she absolutely doesn't clench her teeth to keep them from grinding). She pulls sharply into her favorite parking spot, the one right in front of the door (the one that used to be Graham's, she realizes tensely. The police cruiser still sits unused in back, part of Emma's conditions in being deputy. None of the police crap). She chews the inside of her lip as she glances sideways at Graham.

"You sure you wanna do this?" she asks. His quiet expression does well to mask his feelings as his gaze runs along the station, and he slowly shakes his head.

"It still feels like last night," he mutters, but his tone is more awed than upset, and he finally returns her gaze. "That man," he says, and nods at the door, at Killian, "Is he the new deputy?"

She inhales deeply, a strange shame filling her that she absolutely hates.

He was _dead_. She had _moved on_. Six years passed.

But to him… it had been only a night.

"Something like that," she answers carefully, and it isn't a lie but she still feels absolutely terrible.

Killian has shifted slightly having seen her pull up, first moving to come closer but stopping upon realizing she isn't exiting the car yet. He's an _idiot _standing there shivering, she thinks, because she has told him where the extra key is at least a hundred times over and he is absolutely _ridiculous, _shifting anxiously from foot to foot, eyes trained impatiently on her door.

"Ah."

It is a gentle exclamation, startling Emma, and she glances back beside her at Graham. He is studying her expression, brow furrowed. He forces his lips to form a slight, sad smile that does not reach his eyes (she can see a million conflicting emotions churning in the grey and that damn lump is rising again in her throat. This is so ridiculous and impossible but _of course _it'd happen in this damn town).

She opens her mouth to say something and when nothing comes to her , she slowly presses her lips back together. His expression immediately softens but that ache is still in his eyes, feeding right into her and the nausea is back biting acidly at her throat.

"It's been a long time, Emma," he says, voice soft and gentle for her, to help her but it only feeds her misery and all she wants is to be out of the suffocating air within her bug. "I couldn't expect a woman as beautiful as you to still be single."

She swallows hard and reaches for the door handle. She needs air, to breathe, to think. But he touches her arm carefully and she stops.

"It's okay, Emma," he tells her, and she forces herself to meet his attentive eyes once again, so goddamn _honest. _"I'm _glad _you moved on. The woman I knew yesterday wasn't exactly someone I'd describe as adaptable."

The slightest twinkle has returned to his eyes and somehow it feels like a small weight has been pulled from her chest, heart suddenly light and no longer quite as constricted by the heaviness of the past.

She glances back out at Killian. He's watching them, brow furrowed, but quickly looks away when she catches his eye. David has pulled up now and Emma takes a breath, pulling herself back to the moment.

"We should get inside," she tells him, and her voice shakes unhelpfully as she pulls her arm away from him and slips from the car.

It shouldn't hurt this much.

Killian's eyes brighten the moment they land on her and it takes every fiber of her being to hold herself back, to refrain from walking straight into the constant comfort of his arms and shut down. There is work to be done and she knows that if she lets him hold her now she will never have it in her to let go and face what is happening.

(And that is not even to mention how callous it would be, to hold him with these two bits of their past looking on, looking upon what time has taken from them. When she stops feet in front of him it makes the pit of her stomach ache and _long _for him even if she does know it is for the better. Hurt flickers through his expression but he seems to understand as his blue gaze settles tentatively on Graham beside her).

"This is our other ghost, then?" he says simply, and she nods.

"Graham," she glances at him taking Killian in beside her, then back. "He was… he was the sheriff."

"I gathered," he replies and continues when her eyebrows shoot up, "You described the call as a 'lunatic claiming to be sheriff'," he explains, teasing twinkle stealing halfheartedly into his eyes, "I know this buggering town well enough by now. It was not so hard to put the pieces together."

By now David has come up beside her, and he is watching Milah suspiciously. She is still hanging back uncomfortably by the door, holding Emma's jacket tight around her middle.

"Is that the other one?" Dave asks, and Killian and Emma nod simultaneously. (Emma had briefed him back at the library when he was shocked by her lack of surprise at finding Graham alive. His curiosity had been peaked and she regretted telling him now that he'd insisted on coming along).

Killian shivers visibly and Emma refrains from making some biting comment about the fact that the key was just in the damn bushes, instead she brushes past him and Milah to open the door to the station and usher everyone inside. She Watches Milah, the last to enter, duck into the warmth.

She takes this opportunity, and grabs Killian's arm before he can follow the others, letting the door fall closed so finally, _finally, _they have a moment alone.

But she has a reason for the action and it is not wrapping herself in his arms, however much she wants to.

"You said she was pregnant," she states. Cutting right to the chase because she doesn't know how else to do this, how to have the discussion delicately.

He nods once, confusion etched in his brow as a silence stretches between them, an uncomfortable silence that leaves her itching because their silences are _never _uncomfortable.

And then realization dawns on him, blue eyes widening and jaw going tense.

"Love, you don't think…" he begins frantically.

"I don't _know_, Killian," she answers, shaking her head once. "But it's not impossible, is it? I mean, there are two people _back from the dead_."

When he doesn't answer, clearly searching for something (anything) to say, she continues.

"Maybe… maybe we should call Whale. Have him check her out. Hell, have him check them both out. Maybe there is something we're missing."

He is somewhere else, but his conflicted expression is wide open to her as he nods cautiously.

"Perhaps we are."

"We'll figure this out," she says gently after another pause, an afterthought that she isn't even entirely sure is true.

He knows, of course, smiling sadly at her.

"We always do."

Regina shows up at the station before Whale does.

(The message she'd left him suspicious at best, something about x-rays and ultrasounds and not telling a soul and she's beginning to consider calling him back when the door suddenly opens. All calm, steady thoughts leaves her mind).

"If I'm not mistaken, Swan, you're paid to answer your phone," she says bluntly as she lets herself in. Emma is sitting beside Killian on the computer deep in research that has led them absolutely nowhere. Milah is in the records room with David, having insisted she was quite capable of research (and Killian had nodded), looking into anything relating to hearts and revival in their files. Graham is at his old desk, going between his computer and files but mostly staring into space when he thinks she isn't looking.

(She knows she shouldn't include them in the research but neither are people used to sitting and doing nothing and neither claims to know anything past the times of their deaths and she couldn't see the harm in giving them something to take their minds off of it, however weak a distraction it is. She knows if it were her, she'd never want to be forced to sit and twiddle her thumbs).

But Regina storms in and everything rational leaves her mind. She is flooded instead with a blind rage, thinking only of Graham's helpless cries and clinging to his lifeless body and all the days of misery following.

She stands up abruptly, ignoring Killian's sound of surprise.

"How _could _you," she growls, though she is not entirely sure that this is the reaction Regina is expecting.

"I've been hearing a bit too much of just that today for my liking," she answers with a detached shrug and Emma is so goddamn angry she can't even see, taking two long steps forward to come up to her.

"You _killed him_," her eyes burn with unbidden tears and she hears movement behind her and finally the color leaves Regina's face. She purses her lips together.

"Oh."

"_Oh_!?" she repeats, clenching her teeth together, squeezing her eyes shut, clinging to the very few remaining shards of calm within her and trying to breathe steadily.

"Emma," Graham's voice is gentle but laced with warning, "It's okay."

His words only feed the fire burning within her.

"It's not _okay_," she hisses, eyes still trained firmly on Regina's, melting away at her icy composure, "You had his heart and you _used_ him and when he tried to escape you. You _killed him_."

The rage is shifting, reaching somewhere far more deep and personal within her and now she knows she can't back down, she can't let this go.

"Perhaps his attempt to _escape_, as you say it, was ill advised."

She knows it's her defensive mechanism and that she is trying not to engage but she has had it past the tipping point with Regina's _crap _and her fury overcomes her, blind rage becoming something more frantic and violent and she loses herself at the utter lack of care in her eyes because _it isn't good enough_.

"_You bitch_."

She startles even herself as she throws herself at her, fingers clenched. Her fist makes solid cracking contact with her jaw, the satisfaction she feels is nothing her magic could give her. Regina immediately retaliates with a burning, razor-nailed slap across her face as she winds up another punch.

Her second fist does not quite reach her, however, for a strong pair of arms grab her around her middle and drag her back. She fights against him, forcing all her weight at Regina at the same moment that she drags free of Killian (who'd leapt between them at the first punch, pushing to separate them) Regina successfully lands a solid punch to her gut that knocked the breath from her.

She doubles over and Graham wraps around to her front so now both men are between the line of fire, gently leading her backwards as Killian shoves Regina the opposite direction.

Her stomach is on fire and she clings to it, fingers digging into her shirt sudden fear setting within her that she tries hard to swallow, to hide the pain.

"Emma," Graham's eyes are trained on hers, wide and concerned. He repeats her name, holding her shoulders firmly. His face is blurred through tears and she tears a hand from her stomach to rub them angrily away. "Are you alright?"

She catches the briefest sight of Killian past his head, looking over his shoulder. Jealously flashes obviously through his expression before swiftly becoming concern at her expression.

"Fine," she sputters, ignoring the stabbing pain she feels as she forces herself to straighten, "I'm fine."

"Still incapable of finishing a fight," Regina brushes off her front distractedly and Graham tightens his grip on her shoulders, as if afraid she'll try to lunge again.

She doesn't.

"What do you want," her voice is stiff and she doesn't particularly care what Regina wants. But it is still her job to find out, and she is certainly more professional than the queen. The other woman straightens, eying her cooly.

"I _wanted _your attention hours ago but you were apparently otherwise engaged," she looks between the two men with an eyebrow raised, as if proving a point, and Emma clenches her teeth impatiently together. "Your boyfriend," she says, motioning at Graham (and the offense on Killian's face at the title is tangible, eyes shooting angrily to the floor), "Isn't the only one in this town back from the dead. "

The words have barely left her lips when the station door opens again. This time though, it is Whale who steps through, lugging a couple pieces of rather heavy looking equipment at his sides.

"I hear I am needed for once?" he says to no one in particular, swinging around the corner and setting his equipment heavily atop the paperwork that is already cluttering the space of Emma's desk. She half rolls her eyes, trying to ignore the action as she gives him her attention.

"We've got some dead reincarnate," she mutters, and smirks dryly in spite of herself, "Right in your wheelhouse, Frankenstein."


	4. Chapter 4

This is far from the worst thing she has yet to face in Storybrooke. It isn't threatening, not really. People coming back from the dead. Not yet, at least. But it isn't the reincarnation specifically that makes this so difficult.

It is a pattern she's noticed, through the years. The twist that each and every threat presents is far worse than the threat on itself. Pan had been dangerous, yes. But she could fight and could deal with his tricks. Until, of course, her _child _was revealed as the truest believer and died in the process. That had thrown a bit of a wrench into her carefully practiced calm.

Evil Snow Queen- fine. She could reign in her magic and learn to fight her off, to protect her family. She could deal with icy snow monsters and being trapped in Storybrooke. But learning of her psychotic belief that she was destined to become a part of her family, that she _had _known her in the past and that she intended to make history repeat itself… it was something she hadn't been prepared to take.

She was capable of handling _literal _ghosts and stale feelings and healing wounds being prodded. She has become stronger the longer she spends here, through all the twists that the endless Storybrooke threats had brought along with them. She could find it within herself to handle these new apparitions, these very alive blasts from the past. But nothing, _nothing _could have prepared her to process that a child (_Killian's _child) could potentially be growing in his revitalized ex lover. Not only does this add infinitely to the weight of the situation… but it adds to her growing insecurity as well.

She isn't sure how the _hell _she and Killian are meant to manage through this. He is _hers _now (and she cringes at the selfish thought). She has spent her life working to push her past behind her. She has been relentless in creating barriers between then and now, walls that she still can peer back over but _nothing _can pass through. It makes her sick to think that after all her work, her endless commitment to keep it all back, that one little stumble could knock it all down and send everything crashing back down upon her.

And she _doesn't know _what to do.

So she quietly helps Whale set up in the extra office, jumping on the opportunity to have something _present _to occupy her mind, something that doesn't relate to Graham or Milah, or watching Killian watch her with anxious eyes and nervous twitches of his hand.

The situation had been explained briefly to the doctor, who immediately became very obviously twice as enamored with the job, staring curiously and unashamed at Graham until Emma coaxed him to the spare room to prepare the equipment.

"It's all… safe, right?" The thought occurs to her rather suddenly, slipping from her lips before she can censor. She eyes the wires and gadgets that all look so daunting when hooked up.

"What, for dead people?" He asks, looking up from the screen he is focused on with a raised brow.

"For pregnancy," she corrects, as she glares at him. He smirks, returning his attention to the computer.

"Do you have reason to be concerned, Emma?" A playful smile plants itself on his face.

She scowls at him, despite the fact he isn't looking at her.

"Milah does, Whale."

"Ah, yes. The pregnant one."

He peers at her over the screen with a teasing glint in his eye that frustrates her immensely, and she bites back an angry comment. No one in the damn town knows how to be professional. He has the decency to at least look contrite when she doesn't soften her glare.

"I'm teasing, Emma. I thought a joke might lighten the mood. It's like Normandy in here."

She doesn't answer, instead she chooses to finish connecting the wires as he has instructed her. Her mind is back _exactly _where she doesn't want it to be.

"What do you think her chances are?" She asks carefully after an uncomfortable moment of silence of which she had spent debating the comment in the solitude of her mind.

Whale hits a few buttons that start a gentle buzzing, this time not looking up from his work.

"I'm not sure I understand what you're asking."

She again plays the words through her mind before speaking, slowly and cautiously.

"What… what can a growing baby take? I mean… death obviously is kind of unchartered territory and I get that but… they're fragile, aren't they?" She knows she is watching him too intently, eyes too wide and she tries to detach herself but she can't. He is looking at her now, gentle but suspicious.

"You'd be surprised what a child can endure within the womb," he replies, studying her carefully. "Pregnant bodies have built-in defense mechanisms. Mothers protect their offspring long before they are born. You said yourself, I can't possibly predict what death has done. But I am certainly intrigued to find out."

She tears her eyes from him, nodding her head , as her teeth bite nervously on her bottom lip.

"I don't mean to pry, but you do seem quite concerned about this," he presses, and she can hear the carefully disguised curiosity in his tone.

"If you don't mean to pry," she answers simply, heading for the door to retrieve Milah and Killian, "then don't."

Milah is clever and only requires a brief explanation of the equipment and what it will do before nodding at Emma.

"You wish to determine whether I am still pregnant," she says bluntly, and the practiced way her expression remains carefully balanced tells her that this isn't a thought that has only just occurred to her. (Killian on the other hand goes a shade paler, fidgeting further still at the calm of Milah's tone. Her overwhelming urge to reach out and hold him only grows).

"That's the idea," Emma responds, forcing herself to stop and look at Killian because she knows she can't take watching him much longer without being in his arms, without being able to comfort him with something other than her stuttering words. "The doctor is in here, he has all his equipment set up… if you're ready."

She realizes how delicate this is and how conflicted the other woman must feel standing in the face of such a moment. She can't even imagine how it would feel to be in such an unfamiliar environment, much less thrown into a time and a land she knows nothing about. Uprooted from everything she knows... (she knows the feeling, the spinning disorientation, clinging to anything familiar). But still, Milah forces a wry smile to her lips and nods.

"Thank you."

The sentiment takes Emma thoroughly by surprise.

"For what? I haven't exactly been a star detective," she isn't sure whether or not the other woman knows what this means but it doesn't seem to matter for she shakes her head and continues.

"You've been nothing but kind to me through this, Emma," she says, and her smile grows genuine, "I cannot imagine this scenario is ideal for any of us, but your dedication has astounded me. I simply hope you know that I do appreciate what you're doing a great deal."

Milah's tone is blunt and honest and leaves Emma shifting uncomfortably at her kind words because she is still stuck deep in her own mind, in her own concerns and the _last _thing she feels is kind and dedicated.

"I want to figure this out as much as you do," she finally manages, glancing sideways at Killian who is watching their interchange with intent blue eyes.

Another lengthy silence falls between them, until Milah lets out a heavy sigh.

"I suppose we ought to get this over with, then."

Directing her words at Killian and he nods sharply, stepping forward to reach for the door. As he holds it open his eyes fix on Emma, request for her presence set deep in the lines on his brow.

_Please come. Please be with me. I cannot do this alone._

But it isn't his place to invite her in, not truly. It isn't right of her to assume she is a part of this. It isn't right of her to assume she has a part in _this _with _them_.

Selfishly, she is not certain she can take the intensity of the situation even if she _knows _he must be feeling infinitely less prepared than she.

But then;

"Are you coming, Emma?"

Milah's voice is soft and inviting and it shocks her, but when she meets her eyes she knows clearly that she is only allowing Emma access to this seemingly intimate moment for _him_. She is brave, this woman. Remarkably so, and for the first time Emma thinks she could easily become close to her, possibly even friends. If the conditions were different (and it would have to be quite different, really, because in the standards of the world they live in she is everything she should hate; her child's grandmother, her boyfriends ex- but the way the woman holds herself astonishes Emma and she can't help it when she feels a strange connection to her in spite of everything).

Respect for the other woman swells within her and she nods slipping into the room in front of Killian. She hears the resounding click of the door that seals her within this room and this awkward situation seemingly intensifies. close the door behind her.

"I'll be doing an ultrasound," Whale is quick, to explain carefully to Milah, who is listening aptly even though this is all information Emma has already told her. "I'll listen for a heartbeat and see what I can see. I'd like to do some x-rays as well but seeing as those are not safe for pregnancy, I'll save those for our other… reincarnate."

Milah nods slowly, glancing at the machines as he points to them.

"If I understand correctly, your death occurred when your heart was crushed?"

He looks to Killian for confirmation and it takes a moment for the question to register but when it does, he nods slowly. Pain clearly flashing through his wide eyes.

"Intriguing," Whale mutters, more to himself. "With your permission, I'd like to examine your….chest as well, to see what I can determine about the nature of your return."

"Whatever you feel you must," she agrees, and Whale bobs his head, motioning at the desk Emma had managed to clear It was the only flat surface in the office that was not the floor.

"You'll have to excuse our rudimentary set up," he tells her with a sideways smile as she settles herself upon the table.

Killian is stiff beside her and she cannot bring herself to look at him as Milah gently tugs up her shirt (her warmest white turtleneck) at Whale's instruction.

"This might be cold," he warns her, and she flinches when he applies the jelly above her belly button.

They all seem to be holding their breath as Whale works—he makes the occasional noise of curiosity—all unexplained "hmms" and "ahhs" that make Emma itch with frustration.

She considers the possibilities while he works. Considers anxiously how Killian will break if the child is gone (because he doesn't know how to detach himself, really, and she knows now that the loss still plagues him even after all these years). She wonders for herself what might happen if Milah is still carrying the child. She knows Killian and by default knows he is a man of honor but she doesn't know how anyone could manage to work out the most honorable way to handle such a scenario. The feeling of insecurity that burns in the pit of her stomach at the thought is growing achingly familiar. Her nerves tingle, holding her balanced on the edge.

She thinks it must have been near 30 minutes when Whale finally looks up from his studying and puts the wand aside.

"This is all very intriguing," he mutters, and Killian shifts uncomfortably beside her.

He is so close, shoulder nearly pressed to hers, and when their fingers accidentally brush she longs to take his hand and hold it tight but it is simply not the time. Not with Milah lying on a table mere inches in front of them.

This situation is completely impossible.

"I'd like to perform X-rays on the second patient, to confirm my findings," he says, and the silence floods into the cracks of the room.

"And your other… findings?" Emma asks after a moment, and a beat of confusion passes in his eyes before the realization hits.

She should've known better than to ask Doctor fricking Frankenstein to confirm life.

"Oh, the pregnancy? Don't worry about it. There's nothing there."

The silence cracks all at once, Milah letting out a breath at the same moment Killian inhales sharply. Tight tension coiling in Emma's stomach releases all at once and she feels absolutely _awful _that she feels like she can breathe again.

"I need… I need a bit of air."

The door slams behind him and Milah is sitting up to go after him, shirt falling over her still moist stomach but Emma steps abruptly forward and reaches her hand to her shoulder, gently stopping her.

"He's changed since you've known him, Milah," she explains as the other woman's eyes settle on her, confused, "He… he has grown accustomed to being alone. He just needs a minute and he'll be back. He always comes back."

She's not sure how Milah can believe the words that she isn't even sure of herself.

"I'm thinking I said something," Whale mutters, and Emma turns angrily to him, her gentle hand still on Milah's tense shoulder.

"_Don't worry about it_?" she hisses, eyes blazing, "flawless bedside manner, Dr. Frankenstein."

He raises his hands in a halfhearted surrender.

"It seems I _greatly _misunderstood our conversation earlier, Miss Swan."

The brokenness of his voice plagues her mind and she clenches her teeth.

"The conversation in which I expressed my _concern_ for the life of an unborn child!?" she growls and Whale makes a face somewhere between a cringe and a forced smile.

"That's the one," he confirms brightly.

She swallows hard and angry, forcing her attention off of the doctor and back to Milah. She has put on a strong face, but Emma knows the art of them firsthand and knows that it is only _that; a facade_. Whale mutters something about 'X-rays in the office' and 'Graham' and takes this quiet moment as an opportunity escape swiftly out the door.

"I'm so sorry," Emma tells her carefully as soon as the door closes, but she is immediately shaking her head.

"It is for the better. We both know it is for the better," she says softly, again shocking Emma with her perceptiveness.

"Maybe it is," she agrees carefully, "but that doesn't make it any less awful."

Milah is still shaking her head.

"He only wants a child," she tells her, and she nods because she _knows_. She sees how he behaves around baby Neal and around Henry, listens to his many stories of Bae in his youth. She knows he wants a child. It's all he's ever wanted. "His mind is too fogged now to see that this is no new loss. That he lost our child 200 years ago with me."

"He loves deeply," Emma adds, studying Milah and trying to bite back the question that has been nagging at her nearly all day. She fails, curiosity and perhaps a touch of suspicion getting the best of her.

"You are remarkably contained about this whole… coming back from the dead thing."

The woman actually _smiles_, light and broken.

"I assure you that I do most certainly resent you for having him now," she tells her in a pleasant tone that doesn't seem to match her words, "But in my life, darling, Killian gave me everything I ever dreamed of having. Adventure. Freedom. Respect. I lived fully and happily, and even if my death was premature, I feel that I accomplished all I ever could've wished to. I only feel I never fully returned all that he gave me. He was always a broken man, and I could only find so many ways to fill the holes. But with you, Emma, he is more together than I've ever seen him. You've changed him and assisted him in becoming whole again, something I could never do in my lifetime. I am only glad I have been offered the opportunity to see him this way. To see what the future has brought him beyond me."

Her words are so flowing and descriptive that they feel slightly more like a window inviting her to peer into her subconscious, and Emma suddenly understands why Killian loved this woman. The bravery. The spunk. The love of adventure. She is everything that mattered to him and Emma hurts for the both of them all over again despite her positive words.

"I… don't know what to say," Emma sputters honestly and feels ridiculous following such eloquence with her stuttering insecurity.

"Perhaps," Milah answers, a mischievously knowing glint lighting in her eyes, "You could simply assure me that I am correct in believing that you are pregnant."

xxxxxxxxxx

He isn't certain what it is that he is feeling.

He knows better than to be disappointed, not having expected anything in the first place. But the sinking pain that wrenched at his gut certainly was not relief either, despite just how uncertain a position it had been.

He thinks he might be burning emptiness within him is biting relentlessly at the walls of his stomach. A contained rage, but even that seems slightly off.

It is _overwhelming_.

"Bad news?"

The voice is sudden, echoing against his back and it irks him because it is _him_. Feeding the empty hole within him with unresolved jealousy. He saw him clinging to Emma as she's doubled over, saw her talking gently with him in the bug and it is too much for him to stand as he rises to his feet, turning to stand facing the other man, falling just shorter than him (and somehow their height now feels like yet another battle he's lost between them).

"Whatever news it is," he says stiffly, "It isn't yours to hear, mate."

_Emma isn't his either, the other man would do good to remember._

His tone seems to catch him by surprise and his brow furrows.

"I didn't mean to pry," Graham tells him carefully, "I just meant to try to check on you."

"I'd rather you stop trying."

His tone is sharp and cruel but it only takes imagining how enamored Emma still seems with the ex-sheriff to justify it in his mind (her eyes wide and bright and taking the other man in so carefully, with so much rever, that it makes him ache just thinking about it).

The man has other thoughts, eyes taking on an resentful gleam.

"Might I make the humble suggestion that you put the smallest bit of work in at least attempting to stand me?" he says coolly, grey eyes sizing him up and down. "I pose no threat to your love life, and the more we don't get along, the harder this becomes on Emma."

He chooses the right words and they sink deep beneath Killian's skin and not a fiber of his being wants to admit that he is right. (But he is) Fortunately, finally, the doctor slips back into the room, Milah and Emma just behind him. He starts speaking with no foreword, not even waiting to see if everyone is listening.

"I have sent David back to the hospital with a few samples I want tested… but having seen what I have between the two reincarnates here, I am now prepared to share my findings."

Emma is watching him with her arms crossed tightly around her middle, jaw and muscles tense. She's been this way all day, on the edge, and he knows he is failing her by not taking her in his arms and rubbing the knots delicately out from within her but he knows it'll only annoy her further now, that she is trying to be strong on her own for the sake of their visitors. It is ridiculous and she is only torturing them both, but he knows better than to go against her wishes.

She speaks out first.

"Lets hear it then."

A flash of nervous excitement visibly passes the Doctor's eyes at the invitation to go on.

"While I am certain your bodies are quite sound and healthy, I noted aspects of both hearts to be… well, off. Arteries misplaced and what not. Upon further research I was able to determine that there is not blood running through your veins and your respiratory systems simply are not _right_," he pauses, looking amongst the small group with a bright twinkle in his eye, "My hypothesis, based on the eerily botanical structure in the place of both your hearts- is that you are breathing not oxygen, but carbon dioxide."

He says it like it is something momentous, and looks deeply offended when there are no resounding noises of realization through the station.

"You're gonna have to give us that again, but in English," Emma says tensely, and he can tell by her icy tone that she has nearly reached her tipping point.

"No one?" Whale groans, staring between each of them in turn.

"Pirate," Killian mutters the reminder in his defense when doctor's eyes fall last upon him. He sighs.

"Plants. You and everyone else who has come back, I suspect, have a plant in place of your heart that is sustaining your life," he hesitates, looking between Graham and Milah carefully, "In my professional opinion? Get lots of water and sunlight. These 'houseplants' are ones you probably don't want to let die." He says with a light chuckle that no one returns.

A relatively unusual quiet moment settles upon group that only lasts a moment, shattered by the scraping of the door and the sound of footsteps. Henry slips in, hair tousled from the breeze, bringing a blast of cold winter air with him and looking about until his eyes land on Emma.

"Mom!" he greets, tugging at the sleeves of his jacket (they are too short for his swiftly growing body), "I heard about what's happening, do you need help researching? I brought the book."

Before Emma can manage an answer, Milah lets out a broken noise beside him.

"Bae?"

xxxxxxxxxx

She is kneeling in the dirt of her small garden, the single patch of fertile land He allows her in his stretching expanse of wasteland. Her fingers still tingle pleasantly from the events of the morning but the warmth is slowly creeping out of them and leaving her _cold _and _empty _and _dead_—all the things she cannot stand most about the world.

Her plants are withered from her temporary absence, brown and wrinkling in on themselves. She knows better than to leave them for long, knows the treachery of the terrain of her winter home, and she sighs quietly in spite of herself.

"It's alright, darlings," she tells the wilted leaves and buds in a dancing whisper, reaching to tangle her long fingers in the closest greying, brittle stem, "I'm back now."

Warmth rushes back to her fingers as the steam delicately hugs around where she has entwined them, strengthening as they brighten back to green, curling up and around her hand steadily. The tingling is addictive and she gently frees her fingers from the plants grasp, going for the next nearest that is already reaching thirstily towards her.

She lives in Hell. But she does _love_ her garden.


	5. Chapter 5

The initial relief Emma feels at the sight of her son is immediately soured at the soft exclamation from Milah. Yet another complication Emma has failed to consider.

Neal.

Henry looks immediately to Milah at her cry , brown eyes (_his _eyes) wide and curious as he takes her in.

She should not be startled that the resemblance she sees between her son and his grandmother is suddenly so evident—same strong nose and low eyebrows and searching expression set deep within their matching wide eyes.

But she should've _anticipated _this.

"Henry," he clarifies after a moment, breaking the delicate silence that the others could not bring themselves to break, stepping forward with a hand extended carefully to her (so grown up and polite, Emma can't help but feel pride swell in her chest at his tender movements).

"Milah."

Henry's eyes have taken on that perceptive gleam, the one Emma knows all too well, preceding years and years of excited exclamations of fairytale counterparts and magical solutions… and he speaks before she realizes what is coming.

"You're my dad's mom!"

The quiet that follows his words is deafening, pounding more firmly at her ears than any that has settled upon the room yet.

She shouldn't feel the guilt that she does, clawing at her insides—but when MIlah's eyes land on her, confused and suspicious she wishes she could disappear.

"_Your _son?" she asks slowly, carefully, still clinging to the words. "Yours… and Bae….are?"

She doesn't want to know what the other woman thinks of her. After the intimate moment they shared she is sure the connection is now tarnished for she has taken the two most important men from Milah in the brief amount of time she has been back. But her eyes take on a slight hopeful gleam as the name of her son passes her lips, and it is clear to Emma that she never once stopped loving him despite what he may have believed. Emma takes a heaving breath before nodding.

"Yes."

She was young, they were reckless… but these are not things that his mother or her son ought to hear.

"Why…" she begins anxiously and Emma is sure she knows, she must know—but she needs to hear it anyway.

"He's gone." (The word 'dead' doesn't seem appropriate )

Milah bites her lip, dragging her eyes to her feet to hide the tears Emma catches pooling within them, taking a slow steadying breath of air.

"You were married?" She asks and Emma knows that it is just to fill the air and mask whatever weakness she may be feeling.

She should probably lie and make it easier on the both of them—but she can't bring herself to conceal the past she had with her son. Not when she sees so much of herself reflected in the other woman's eyes.

"No," she mutters, "Not… not really. It was complicated."

"Things are different in this realm and era," Killian finally speaks, coming quickly to her rescue when she cannot come up with anything to counter Milah's furrowed brow. "Marriage… it isn't a priority."

His eyes fall on Emma now, because he knows all too well how low a priority it is, especially to her. Three. Three times he tried and three times she'd hurt him with quiet murmurs of not being ready.

(The commitment frightens her. The fierce protection that lights in his eyes at every gentle rejection tells her he is quite aware of it. He knows she fears it. He knows that she sees it as another promise made only to be broken. He continues to ask anyway, and continues to prove all her expectations wrong. Her pirate is nothing if not fiercely determined).

"Marriage means nothing compared to love," she agrees weakly, and this time Emma does not have the heart to correct her.

It is growing dark, tendrils of light no longer creeping through the dusty windows. The day has moved by quickly, the hours slipped through her fingers and she feels like all that they have done all day is regress from a position of relative stability into absolute mayhem.

"As intriguing as this all is, I probably should be getting back to the hospital," Whale says, glancing at his watch. "Lots of, er… dead people… to take care of."

When the door creaks shut behind him, Milah speaks tentatively.

"How? How did he… pass?"

Emma doesn't give Henry time to speak, unsure of his full knowledge of the way things ended with Rumplestiltskin and his wife and unwilling to find out through informing the woman that he'd died for his father.

"He was protecting the town."

The lie tastes bitter on her tongue but it seems to settle Milah just slightly, her uneasy edge softening just enough to make it feel worth it.

xxxxxxxxxx

They set Milah and Graham up with rooms at Granny's and send Henry home with the promise they will all meet again tomorrow to discuss things and begin real research with the new information. They all need time to settle their minds around what is happening, and Emma is craving a shower like nothing else. She is rather certain none of them will sleep but it is the thought and the calm that matters.

(She knows the nervous determination set into Graham's face when she leaves him and the apprehensive ache deep in her own stomach won't cease, but the quiet if not will do them all well).

When they slip through the door of _their _home she immediately moves towards the peaceful solitude of the bathroom, not pausing to see Killian close the door behind her. They had yet to be alone today and she is not certain they are ready to be.

_She _isn't ready to be.

She pads swiftly onto the tile and closes the door hard behind her, locking it with a resounding click.

This is the first time in quite a while she has locked him out.

Milah's clothes are hung neatly near the shower, drops of moisture still freeing and forming a small puddle beneath them. She stands with her back pressed weakly to the locked door, the steady _drip, drip, drip_ slowly driving her fraying nerves to the brink of losing control.

"Emma?"

He is behind her, just on the other side of the door. The walls he had destroyed over the years seem to be back with a relentless force, this tangible barrier she has created between them feels as if she, this whole damn day, has backtracked into her former self, into the woman she swore she would never be again with him because she knew better than to shut him out. She knew better than to allow her walls to place miles (or in this case wood) between them and she hates herself for doing this but some many old things are reoccurring that she can't help but feel like she is the Emma Swan that stumbled into Storybrooke those six years ago. She's sure he is suspicious, concerned even, that he hasn't heard the shower switch on. She starts to move, starts to pretend to not hear him and run the water but again her eyes land on the clothes and her body goes stiff.

"Darling, are you alright?" She can clearly hear the unsure edge of his tone and her heart thuds weakly. "Perhaps we ought to talk about what has happened."

"I'm fine, Killian," her voice breaks on 'fine', betraying her tough exterior and she wants to scream because _of course _she isn't _fine_. There is no way in _hell _she can be fine. She clenches her hands into white-knuckled fists at her sides, sinking limply to the cool tile, hugging her knees tight to her chest as she leans hard on the wall.

_Drip, drip, drip._

The drops are small, hardly adding to the puddle as she watches but the size of it tells her that the water has been growing and shifting for quite a while now. She wants to reach for a towel, to wipe it up and move on but she can't convince her body to comply.

"You ought to know you cannot lie to me, love," he says now, soft and broken, and she can imagine the way his face is sure to have fallen, a perfect miserable picture in her mind clawing at her heart and making her ache all over again.

"Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer," she replies sharply, _knowing _it will hurt him. She tries to avert her gaze, study the white porcelain of the toilet or the sideways grain of the cabinet or the ragged tips of her nails. Her eyes refuse to cooperate, though, searching the clothes back out whenever her attention falters.

Milah still has her jacket and all she wants is to wrap herself deeply, safely within it.

"Please darling. Please speak to me," he begs and she bites her tongue angrily. "You cannot just bloody hide from this, Swan. You're in the blasted toilet, you can't treat it as New York. You cannot stay in there forever."

'_Watch me'_ rises icily in her throat, but she swallows it hard. She is being immature and she knows it but she can't do it. She can't face the hurt in his eyes.

The _loss_.

"I don't want to talk about it. There's nothing to talk about."

Her eyes burn.

_Drip, drip, drip._

"Let me in, sweetheart."

She swallows thickly.

"To be clear, I'm only asking to be polite. I am quite capable of letting myself in, although I for one enjoy having a bathroom with a door."

Anger flares within her at his damn persistence but she reaches to flick the lock anyway.

"Clever choice," he tells her as the door clicks open, his expression shifting quickly from victorious to troubled when he finds her curled positioned on the floor.

"Screw you," she answers simply and he forces a wry smile to his lips that does not reach the worried care in his eyes.

"I suppose that is fair," he says, concern still deep in the blue of his eyes. "May I join you?" He motions vaguely at the floor with his wooden hand, eyes still trained on her.

"You'll do what you want no matter what I say," she accuses.

"I will."

_Drip, drip, drip._

"Go away."

He ignores her just as she has predicted, lowering himself awkwardly to the floor across from her, landing hard and she cringes at his sheer clumsiness.

He is such an incessant _idiot_.

A silence falls between them as they stare each other down, both far too stubborn to give in to the other.

"Are you frightened he might die again?" His words come out tight and practiced and she can't help it when her brow furrows in confusion.

"What?"

"You love him. You are scared for what might happen to him when we work out what has already happened. Is that not why you are upset?"

He is so _ridiculous_, sitting opposite her on the goddamn bathroom floor with his long legs tucked snugly in the small space between them, studying her so closely thinking that she is in love with someone else. She nearly loses herself to tears right then and there.

"You _idiot_," she says under her breath, and he cocks an eyebrow. "What the hell happened to open book, Killian? You can't tell me you really think I love anyone but you?"

_Drip, drip, drip._

"It was difficult to say today, love," he answers guardedly. Screaming again seems like a more attractive option.

"How could you say something like that?" She asks apprehensively.

"It's not as if you've quite trusted anything I've said about Milah," he defends, and that hits a nerve. Pain jolts like a bolt of lightning in her stomach and she clenches her teeth for the slightest moment, pressing her fists heatedly into the cool tile before she cannot contain herself any longer.

"How the hell have I 'not trusted' you?" She snaps, thinking of his tone, the way he'd rushed out the door of the station. "I didn't expect this today, alright? I had much different plans. And maybe it makes me selfish, Killian, but I wasn't prepared to deal with your goddamn ex coming back to life still possibly carrying your unborn child. That's a lot to take in in one day even in this town. You couldn't even stick around to comfort her. All you've seemed to give a single damn about today was that child."

He stares at her a moment in utter, silent shock.

"Emma, I couldn't stay in the room," he starts meticulously, but she is on a raging roll now and completely unprepared to stop.

"Yeah, I got that vibe when you ran out of it. Are you still _that_ stuck in the past that you couldn't contain yourself for five minutes? Five minutes, Killia-"

"Stuck in the past?" He snaps, his eyes aflame. "Am I, Swan!? What about that blasted bit of leather you wear, then? And you believe I am the one who is stuck?"

"It's a shoelace, not a growing child!"

"It's what it represents, Emma, and you bloody know it !"

They're yelling at each other now, voices full of heat, fists clenched at their respective sides.

"I don't love him, Killian! I never did, alright!? I lost him before I could love him and nothing will change that!" Her voice comes out much shriller than she had anticipated but she cannot do anything about it, not in her state of frustration.

"Aye, that is why you watched his every move with those sad eyes of yours all bloody day," he bites back.

"Today wasn't hard on just you, Killian! He was a part of my past and I _cared _about him but he is gone. He's gone, just like Milah and just like your child! Don't you ever say I don't know how to move out of the past, Killian, because I have that mastered. I know how to let go, I know how to move on because it is all I ever cared enough to commit to until I met you! I am pregnant with your goddamn child you asshole, and all day I had to consider that I might lose you to her." Her voice cracks and breaks and she is trying so hard not to cry, pressing her lips together, widening her eyes to hold the tears… but moisture begins to drip down her cheeks anyway (just like her stupid clothes that are hanging between them, an ominous reminder of why they are fighting and what they are fighting for). She ignores his stunned eyes, and presses on. "All day I watched myself _letting you go_. And then she wasn't pregnant, and I was stupid enough to grab onto the sliver of hope that maybe we might be okay. It was so damn selfish but all I could think was that maybe this time I was the priority," she sniffs and wipes angrily at the tears that just keep coming, "But you were so heartbroken you couldn't even comfort her and-"

"I was relieved, Emma!" He growls, cutting her off this time with fire in his eyes. "I felt like the biggest bloody git on earth because I was relieved that she was not pregnant. That there was no longer anything that would come between you and I. I had to leave because I could not face her, Emma. I could not look at her feeling as I did. I'm the bloody selfish one."

It is her turn to stare dumbfounded at him.

"What?"

"How could you think anything otherwise?" He asks indignantly, blue eyes studying her face with what could only be gentle disappointment.

"I just thought…" she pauses and watches the way his brow furrows over his focused eyes hanging on to her every word.

"I love _you_, Emma," he says, as he reaches to touch her knee lightly. His fingers emanate a comforting warmth that seeps through the worn material of her jeans. "I lost Milah lifetimes ago, darling. That is when my life with her ended. However much I might regret how things ended, it does not in any case mean that I wish for it back. I want for the rest of my life to be built alongside yours. Nothing _ever _could change that, my love."

When she breathes in, and for what feels like the first time that day, relief leaks into her. He reaches out and brushes a tear tenderly from her cheek with the rough pad of his thumb.

"Why didn't you tell me you were pregnant, love?"

"I was going to tell you this morning," she says faintly, and his fingers tighten temporarily around her knee before he scoots awkwardly across the small room, resting his back against the wall beside her and releasing her to tangle his fingers within hers, squeezing softly.

"As you said, today was far from expected. Do you see now why I wished to speak with you? No door assault necessary." A teasing smirk tugs at the corner of his lips and she can't help but let a small smile form on her own as she ducks into his shoulder, hiding her grin.

It takes so little to shake her faith and so much to gain it back.

And he is repeatedly okay with that.

She peers at him through her moist eyelashes, cheek still pressed comfortably to his shoulder. She can see his soft smile in the lines of his face. He is watching her tenderly, the affectionate expression he always watches her with seeming somehow more intense. His excitement is written so clearly on his face and still he tries hopelessly to play it down.

Her _ridiculous _pirate.

"Are you going to just stare at me?" She asks innocently, a hidden smile pressed into the leather material at his shoulder.

She _knew _he'd be overjoyed.

But experiencing it and feeling it was so different from what she had pictured in her head. It felt so deeply personal and the joy she now feels exuding from him is overwhelming.

A wide, face-splitting smile finally cracks through his composure.

"I'm going to be a father," he realizes aloud, and she swears his smile grows.

_God, _she loves him.

His expression softens reverently as he watches her pressed to his shoulder, reaching with his wooden hand to catch a loose curl and tuck it back behind her ear before running it beneath her chin and tilting her lips up to meet his.

It is a fleeting gentle moment but she feels _everything _in the way his lips press delicately to hers.

When he pulls back, her forehead remains flush against his.

"This is all I've ever wanted."

He frees his finger from hers, playing them up her arm and running them across her stomach, settling on her lower belly.

"There's nothing there yet, Killian," she tells him, burying her lips in the soft hair just above his ear. "Well, nothing you can feel."

"Aye, but what will grow into our child is there. What's to say she cannot hear us?" He eyes her mischievously.

"She?"

His smile turns sheepish.

"Or he."

"You want a girl," she accuses, prodding his shoulder teasingly. "The fearsome Captain Hook wants a tiny little daughter."

His fingers press lovingly into her stomach as he rolls his eyes, grinning nonetheless.

"Perhaps I do," he answers.

_Their child is growing in her stomach._

_Growing, life._

_Life from death._

The realization hits her abruptly and it must show on her face.

"Everything alright, darling?" Killian asks, immediately concerned. (The thought occurs to her that this is going to grow old fast but she tries to let it go, at least for now).

She lets out a shaky breath, bobbing her head.

"It's fine," she assures him, "I'm fine. It's just… I think I know what might be bringing people back to life."


	6. Chapter 6

"We need to go to the library," she says sharply, pulling herself dizzily to her feet, mind already swirling.

"Emma, wait," Killian follows her up, clutching gently at her wrist to stop her. "Darling, Belle is asleep. All the town is asleep. _You _require rest." He watches her with steady concern. "The books will all be there tomorrow. You must be tired, love."

"I have a key," she tells him, tugging her wrist back from his hand and ignoring the rest of his words. It's not as if she'll sleep anyway.

"That is beside the point, Emma! You're bloody exhausted. Today has been a challenge. You need to recuperate, and then I swear to you that tomorrow I will assist you in all the research you wish to do. But not until you've slept." His words are firm but caring and somehow she begins to find herself lulled by them. "Come to bed, love," he adds tenderly, seeing the shift in her expression.

She _is _tired, though she'll never admit it. The day has been overwhelming—walls building and crumbling, mind twisting and turning… but the relief that has filled her since opening up to him, since she stopped trying to do it all on her own and let him in, has been remarkably relieving.

She wishes she could only force her skittish tendencies to remember that it is the two of them _together_ that are strong enough for anything.

She steps forward and he tangles his arms around her as if on cue, tugging her close to his solid body and pressing his lips into her hair as he runs brushing fingers up her spine. His touch sends pleasant shivers echoing through her.

"We're in the bathroom," she realizes into his shirt after a while, and a chuckle shakes his shoulders and reverberates in his chest.

"Aye," he whispers into her hair, "Quite a good location to learn you are expecting a child."

She pulls slightly off him to give him a shove (far more compassionate than annoyed).

The sarcastic _shit._

He's grinning wide and open and catches her wrists easily as they make contact, dragging her back into a kiss that is all passion and tugging and wanting and giving. Her body melts back into his and she relishes in the taste and feel and security that is _him_.

She doesn't think she can live without him.

It is terrifying.

It is _exhilarating_.

"You could've told me anyplace, love, and I would've been equally pleased," he assures her breathily when their lips part, brushing his nose lovingly to hers, and she knows it is the truth. He watches her with such a deeply exposed reverence in the blue of his eyes that she almost feels the urge to look away, as if it is something too personal, too private.

But it is only for her.

"Shall we go to bed, then?" He asks, forehead bumping hers affectionately, those damn eyes so open and blue and lighthearted and a content sigh escapes her lips.

"Okay."

(She wakes through the night and his fingers are always there, always tangled warm and protective beneath her shirt, pressed comfortingly to her stomach and she isn't sure how she can be so ecstatic and so anxious all at once.)

(She knows he will not leave her.)

xxxxxxxxxx

She _loathes _her winter home. It is shadowed and barren and bitter and she'd prefer to be anywhere else. He offers her no freedom apart from the small patch of fertile land she can hardly call a garden, and she spends all of her time in it—tending.

He does not care for her, not really. She is a prize He has won, a trophy He holds mockingly above the heads of his siblings. She despises Him accordingly. However, she lives upon His land at His graces and hating Him is one of the only things to bring her pleasure. Until the day she decided to get creative.

It takes Him all day to notice and when He does, the sheer panic in His voice is worth every meticulous moment of planning.

"What happened to my souls!?"

It is nearly dusk in the upperworld—she knows because He is a creature of habit. He doesn't make his rounds until darkness is falling above. There is no reason that she knows of—it is simply how it has been, always, for centuries upon centuries.

She certainly knows his unchanging routine, after examining it day after day for so long.

She allows herself the slightest smile directed carefully at her dirt-caked knees before looking up just as He emerges from the winding catacombs.

(He keeps them in a wardrobe, now, for reasons she will never understand. It is made of dark, nearly black wood and is not quite tall enough to accommodate His entire frame and he often knocks His head coming and going and it _never _grows old).

He successfully ducks out today, dark eyes trained suspiciously upon her. She shifts on the couch, returning His gaze with her best look of innocence.

She has it down pat.

"What's wrong, lovely?" She asks as He runs an anxious hand through locks of pale hair.

(Intuition tells her not to play nice, not to act differently, but her husband is not a clever man and she finds through practice that flattery _does _in fact get her everywhere. A bat of her eyelashes or a widening of her bright eyes does the trick more often than not and she _does _love playing mind games with Him. It passes the time like nothing else).

(She can plant trickery successfully _anywhere_.)

His eyes narrow and she knows His mind is running in overdrive but He has yet to ever catch her in an act of mischief.

"Souls are missing," he answers, voice full and resonate because he doesn't differentiate in volume for any scenario. He has only one volume at every moment, and it is blaring.

She rolls her eyes lightly.

"Well where'd you leave them?" She raises an eyebrow, and watches as He visibly shifts to thinking even harder, scratching behind His ear resentfully.

(She thinks His head might just implode one day, with the force of which she causes him to think. The thought brings sinful light to the darkness He forces her to live in).

"You know it isn't my job to watch them for you," she chides carefully, and frustration works into the lines of His face. He moves away from the wardrobe, slamming the door shut with a ferocious bang that echoes into the hidden tunnels.

"They couldn't walk off on their own," He growls, stalking angrily across the room to glare at their single dark, clouded window. It overlooks somber dirt as far as the eye can reach. Until he taps it.

_Finally._

She rises detachedly to her feet, wandering up behind Him to watch as tendrils of light swirl through the picture, slowly dissolving out of the darkness. He may not be traditionally clever but it awes her how well He knows his souls. How He knows exactly who is missing, exactly where to train his searching eye. He has a people-oriented personality (or soul, as it is) and He knows his business well. There is a definite reason that He is the King of Hell.

Finally the picture melts into focus, on what she assumes is the first of whom she has set free. She is dull, amidst the other bright souls—the power her meager leafy heart provides is inferior to the flesh that energizes the lives around her. She seems to be at a bar (understandably so—she'd chosen an old soul, one that had quite interesting ties that were sure to stir up the madness she so desperately craved).

"How the hell did she escape," he mutters (loudly, of course), and she glances at his narrowed eyes that bring her to reach comfortingly out to touch his pale arm, the contrast of their skin is stunning.

(He is cold, always, and she finds it ironic that the mortals assume Hell to be hot. It is lifeless and bitter and He subsequently reflects it. She craves the warmth of above and the power in her dark skin helps compensate for it. He cannot stand her gentle warm touches that leave His skin brushed tan and tingling.)

He pulls away distractedly.

"Are there more?"

"Plenty."

She smiles again. His gaze is trained firmly on the glass, searching through soul upon soul.

(She isn't certain how many she has set free. No more than six, she thinks, but she could easily be incorrect in that thought. It doesn't bother her, though, for she knows He will retrieve them all and perhaps even more in their wake).

"I suppose we'll need to go after them, then," she muses, and He nods his head in sharp agreement, tapping the glass again with a white and narrow finger.

The house groans its protest at the prod, and lets out a shudder as the mist as the glass shifts again until it comes into sudden acute focus.

Storybrooke is snowy.

Her mother is no fonder of her absence than she is.

xxxxxxxxxx

Killian has had enough uncomfortable silences to last him at least three lifetimes over. Awkward quiet between he and his crew over lasting winters they were frozen in. Reaching silence between he and Cora, and any other given accomplice he'd taken up with over the years. Even stretching moments in Neverland and _beyond _with Emma and her family.

With Milah there had never been quiet. The woman could bloody talk, and he'd always delighted in listening to as she went on. Telling stories, more often than not. Tales of a boy named Bae with a crooked smile and eyes that danced that he filed mentally as moments that formed her past, memories he'd cherish in the coming years he spent alone. Excited giggles of all she'd heard from the town gossips in every port, living vicariously in the simple complications of the day to day life of simple housewives. She deposited bright whispered dreams into the dark nights they lay together and he carried them with him on their adventures, making it his purpose to turn them into shimmering realities.

(She'd wished to swim in the deepest portion of the ocean and he'd taken her to the darkest waters he knew. She'd imagined planning a bar heist and taking only their mugs—he thinks the Jolly's galley likely still has more blasted cups than could ever go around even in the greatest celebration. He had the freedom and capability to do whatever the bloody hell she wanted and he wanted her to know it. He still remembers so clearly her last wish, whispered to his chest tangled against him in their bed as the gentle rock of the ship lulled them both into calm oblivion.

_A home. A family. _The untamable woman was ready to settle down and he was prepared to give it to her.

She'd been murdered the next day.

It is still the only wish he'd failed to fulfill for her.

He still regrets it).

And as they pull file upon file, flipping through page upon page for anything that might assist their research—she says absolutely nothing.

It slowly drives him mad.

"I'm sorry about our child," he lies when he cannot take the silence a moment longer. The quiet around her is simply _wrong._

But he cannot look at her and therein lies his mistake. The papers she is going through stop rustling and he feels her eyes studying him despite not seeing them.

"You are not," she finally replies after another of those bloody moments, but her voice is gentle, not accusing.

He peers unhurriedly over at her. Her hands are folded over the file she was previously reading, dark eyes focused on him with a shockingly soothing intensity.

"I've been dead," she says, shaking her head, "_Killian_, how many times must I tell you—it is _okay _that you've moved on. It is only right for you to have moved on. You are with her now. I am gone and my pregnancy would've added yet another unnecessary complication to the life you've created with _her_. You can't possibly believe that I would wish for that."

His heart stutters in his chest at her sincere words and he takes a deep breath, allowing them to sit a moment before breaking through the pressing soundlessness.

"You deserved far better, Milah. Far longer a life. I will never stop regretting that you were taken so soon. That your life was left so unlived." His voice quivers over the words, but he holds her eyes firmly and finishes even when he sees protest fill her expression.

"I lived _fully _thanks to you, Killian," she says as he's hardly gotten the last words past his lips, pushing up from her chair and crossing the room to brush her fingers delicately across the scar that lines his cheek.

(It is nothing like when Emma touches him. She has a habit of chewing her nails down that she absolutely _despises _but he _loves, _that leaves her fingers consistently soft and gentle and soothing. Milah has nails that scrape gently and he tenses to keep himself from pulling away. She _knows _and she freezes, sadness flickering in her eyes before she drags them away).

"You gave me everything." She concludes, in a tone more softly broken than before.

"Not everything."

He cannot stop the words that rise past his lips, and she is already shaking her head yet _again_.

"You gave me a billion lives full of feeling and adventure and freedom, which is more than many can say. You owe me nothing," she reaches out again, this time finding his wooden hand and pressing her fingers carefully against it. "If anyone was left owing in our relationship, dearest, it was I."

His eyes are trained where her fingers touch the part of him that isn't him—or wasn't, he thinks, because it certainly is now. It does not seem to faze her as much as it does him. He associates the loss of his hand with that day, with losing another part of himself; Her. His heart. His capability to _feel. _The two points of intense pain meeting together feels wrong and unreal and he tries not to shake.

"He did this, didn't he? That day?" She speaks gingerly, words a cautious prod that he isn't sure he is prepared for.

He clenches his teeth and unclenches them and forces himself to raise his eyes from their hands back to her.

"Aye."

It shouldn't be so bloody hard to force his head to bob in agreement with his words.

She is silent a moment longer and he can feel the regret seeping from her.

"I'm sure that hurt quite a lot," she mutters finally, brow furrowed in an attempt to clear the drifting unease out of the air.

"Not in comparison."

It is the wrong thing to say but he doesn't realize until it is too late and devastation overcomes her features a moment before she quickly covers it with a wry smile.

"Tell me about her, Killian," she changes the topic suddenly with clearly fake cheeriness as she pulls out a chair across from him. "Tell me about when you met her. Please."

He cannot turn down the pleading look in her wide eyes.

He swallows hard.

"There was quite a while after your death that I had a slight… regression, of sorts. For many, many years I was a man I am not proud of," he speaks slowly, watching her expression closely—she keeps it carefully balanced, despite the upset deep in her eyes. He chews the inside of his lip, scratches behind his ear and inhales. "She… she came into my life and for the first time in 200 years I felt ashamed of who I was… Who I'd become."

He smiles absentmindedly in his reminiscing, thinking of her eyes, flaming as she held the cool dagger to his throat. Thinks of how in that moment his heart picked up a new staccato, a sensation he'd thought lost to him. Thinks of how he'd run the escape from the hold those blasted eyes held over him through his mind over and over, trying to convince himself to just _get bloody on with it_. Thinks of how he could not pull himself from the clouded haze she put him in.

Thinks of how he wanted her from the very start and loved her near immediately after.

Thinks of all the times he nearly lost her.

"I love her," he murmurs out loud, heart picking up that same pounding rhythm she'd instilled in him from the start.

Milah's eyes are full of tears as she watches him, but the smile that tugs at her lips is real.

"You want to be with her. To spend the remainder of your life with her. And you deserve that, Killian. In my life you gave me everything I ever wanted. It is my turn now, to give you what you want."

When she drags her hand from his, he lets her go.

xxxxxxxxxx

"Persephone?" Graham still mutters the name dubiously but Emma cannot be swayed.

It makes _sense_.

She does not like how uneasy it makes her feel.

They are in the library on research duty, after setting Milah and Killian up for more work at the station. They'd awoken to a fresh layer of white snow that made Emma's sheets and now eyelids feel impossibly heavier, but there was so much work to be done.

She knew better than to attempt to ignore Storybrooke's madness.

"If she is real it all adds up," she mutters, reaching towards the shelf where Belle has scribbled her instructions to. "Stuck in Hell all winter, daughter of Mother Nature… if there is anyone capable of bringing back the dead with a plant, it'd be her."

She knows what feeling stuck can make someone do.

"But _Persephone_?" He repeats, eyes following her wrist.

"Graham, you are the _fairytale huntsman _who saved the life of _Snow White. _Is the Underworld _really _such an impossibility?"

But he isn't paying attention now, eyes narrowed as he reaches and catches her hand middair, cautiously pulling it near him for a better view of her wrist.

Her cheeks burn.

"Is that my missing shoelace?" He asks, amusement tinging the gray of his eyes as he peers at her. She takes a deep breath, pulling her arm back to her side.

The heaviness of the air seems to fall straight to her shoulders, and the atmosphere shifts rapidly and she swallows, trying to find moisture in her suddenly paper-dry mouth.

It all seems to have flooded into her eyes instead.

She takes a small step away from him, and he lets her.

She _still _can't think about the night.

Think about how goddamn _helpless _she was to save him.

His eyes soften and he reaches out to gently touch her shoulder. It is meant only to calm her, but it sends her heart thudding twice as hard.

"I wear it as a reminder," she finally chokes out, and doesn't flinch when he makes up the space she added with a step towards her, eyes trained brokenly on hers.

_She will not cry._

"A reminder of what? My muddy old boots?" He says it lightly, an attempt to bring a splash of humor to the room that instead falls flat.

"I held you in my arms and watched you die, Graham," she says, voice breaking. She blinks hard, trying to force the wetness to remain in her eyes but the damn rules of biology work against her, causing her movement instead to send a warm droplet freely down her cheek.

"Regina had my heart. There was nothing that _could _be done," he insists, attentive, eyes trailing after the tear that sears down her face.

She can practically feel him itching to wipe it away. She reaches up with the back of her hand and does it herself.

"Exactly. Exactly," she nods firmly, biting at the inside of her cheek. "I'm powerless to protect the people I love."

She _hates _how his eyes widen and his brow furrows.

"Emma…"

"It's true," she snaps, "Don't try to tell me it isn't."

"But it isn't. You have _never _been more wrong," he tells her with determination set in his gaze. She shakes her head but he continues, "You are strong and capable and if I were to name anyone I knew capable of controlling fate it would be you, Emma. Things _happen_. People pass. It is a part of life, especially one here. But you are beyond capable of protecting them in spite of it."

She continues to shake her head.

"You died. Henry's father died. My parents have nearly died. _Henry _nearly died and-"

"And who saved him?"

He cuts her off, staring down at her hard with those wide eyes of his as if _daring _her to lie.

As if he somehow _knows._

"That doesn't change that he nearly was gone," she says instead of answering, voice shaking.

"Who saved him, Emma?" He persists, reaching forward to wrap his fingers comfortingly around her wrist, overlapping the bracelet. His cool fingers catch her by surprise, and she stares at them a moment before slowly looking up at him.

"I did."

The words feel foreign on her tongue, but he nods once, slowly, at her words.

His fingers seem to drag the warmth from her skin as his thumb circles absentmindedly above the leather. Watching her.

"I wish I hadn't died."

The sudden broken realization in his tone nearly destroys her, bringing fresh tears to her eyes.

"But you did."

"I wish I could kiss you."

His voice shakes. There is nothing expectant in his tone, nothing forceful. He is all openness and honesty and she doesn't fight the tears now.

"I know."

She thinks for a moment that he might.

(She thinks she might let him).

But then comes the sound of doors banging and it brings them back to the reality of their situation. _Killian, she's in love with Killian. Not Graham. It is the moment, she thinks, that sparks the feelings that aren't there. Not anymore. _They pull apart swiftly, moving out of the aisle and towards the noise.

They are no longer alone.

A towering man stands in the entryway of the library, all gaudy pale skin and blonde hair that seems to never have seen a moment of sun. His eyes are narrowed and rage is written into every line upon his face. He is trailed by a woman of near equal height with flowing black hair and the slightest smirk that gives the impression of a common fixture upon her face.

When the man sees Emma, he stops abruptly.

"I believe you have some things I've lost," he mutters, and his voice somehow finds a way to echo through the wide walls of the library.

Something about his tone is sinister and a terrifying chill shoots down Emma's spine.

_This is not good at all._


	7. Chapter 7

The man crosses the room to her in three long strides and the temperature seems to drop as he gets closer, stopping when only the slightest space remains between the two of them. The woman follows tightly behind him but stops further back, crossing her arms loosely and watching with a practiced eye.

Emma thinks that smarting off to the man is likely ill judgement.

But his imposing form and resounding tone fray at her nerves and she can't help it when stubborn words rise to her tongue.

"I'm off duty, but the lost and found is in the station across town," she raises an eyebrow and stands up a little straighter, "You can look through there or come back tomorrow."

The man's brow furrows and he wrinkles his nose, and she knows she has hit a nerve that affronts him personally. It takes him a moment to come back from her retaliation, and when he does any former businesslike tone that may or may not have existed is gone.

"How dare you speak so boldly!" He snarls, and she could swear it makes the library shake. She feels Graham shift anxiously behind her but refuses to be swayed, crossing her arms tightly in front of her and staring the man down. He stands at least a head taller than her and her stomach turns apprehensively when he does not even begin to back down.

_She knows who he is._

"How dare _you_ march in here and accuse the sheriff of theft," she retorts, voice coming out far steadier than she feels.

"Emma—" Graham touches her shoulder, warning in his tone.

This isn't a fight she has a semblance of a chance at winning.

The man's eyes narrow dangerously, lips forming a tight line as he canvasses her body. Slowly, starting at her feet and working his way leisurely up. She tries not to fidget under his chilling eyes, tries to stand stiff and unmoving but his gaze feels _tangible, _as if he is prodding and pulling within her. As if he is shuffling about her body in _search _of something.

When he again meets her eyes there is a bitter dominance in his that forms a cold stone in the pit of her stomach.

_This man is not one to trifle with._

(Not even _man_ she considers, but pushes it swiftly from her mind, a thought far too heavy for her to come to terms with in the moment).

"You are a bright soul, Miss Swan," he murmurs, and she cringes when long fingers reach towards her and settle icily on her stomach.

She can feel him straight through three layers of material, and the chill blossoms out from his point of contact until she is shivering.

He smirks, thin lips quirked twistedly upwards as his frigid eyes set searching where his fingers press into her.

"And you carry one as well."

She takes a gasping breath and uncrosses her arms to slap his hand away. Warmth returns immediately to her nearly aching bones.

"Don't _touch_ me," she hisses past her clenched teeth, taking an unconscious step back (running into a transfixed Graham who swiftly moves at the contact, as if she's burnt him).

Her fingers find her belly, rubbing unnecessary warmth where his touch is still ghosted. She catches sight of the woman behind him, whose attention has been swayed by some nearby books that she now flips idly through, only glancing up on occasion—boredom clear in her expression.

"What do you want?" Graham asks, stepping forward and in front of Emma.

(She allows him to despite the familiar voice in the back of her head screaming that she is capable, that she can take care of herself because while it is true, it is not only herself she has currently to worry about).

(She isn't sure she can take care of both of them).

Lightness seems to fill her when _finally _the man's eyes leave her, travelling to Graham.

His smile shifts into something far more sinister as he searches him now, before melting from his face entirely.

"You, for starters."

She tenses every muscle in her body to avoid shaking, clenching her fists stiffly at her sides.

"Ahh, Hades then?" He says it offhandedly, as if discussing something far less perverse. "You really have quite the temper for a man who managed to lose a handful of _souls_. Which I am fairly certain was far more inconvenient for us than you."

_So he believes her now._

It's her turn to issue a warning to him, prodding him between the shoulder blades as Hades' eyes flame.

"You are _deeply fortunate _that I am incapable of returning you to where you belong before tonight, mortal," he barks, and again the entire library seems to shift.

"I wouldn't insult him, handsome. Your eternal death is in his hands"

The woman speaks for the first time, voice a velvet purr. Her eyes are fixed coyly on Graham, and if this is his wife…

"Silence!"

Emma swears she catches her wink, and is _certain _she doesn't imagine the way her face brightens in her husband's rage.

The man is studying them again, adding them up until he seems finally to settle on something.

"You will return all of my souls here to me before sundown," he stares at Emma as he says it, scowl carved into his expression. "My wife will remain here and assist you in locating…"

He pauses, moving rigidly nearer to her reaching towards her stomach again but stopping just before his fingers touch.

She clenches her jaw firmly, forcing herself to stand her quivering ground, staring him coolly down.

"If you fail to do as I ask…" His eyes fall greedily to her stomach, corner of his lip twitching and she shifts a hand over it, clutching feebly at her shirt where he stares, breath catching in her throat. "I am not above compensating for those lost with… fresher souls."

She doesn't breath as the air snaps and a cloud of black smoke fills the air where he'd stood—not until every molecule of the dust has evaporated into the air.

When it does, the breath she takes seems to reach for her toes.

"Real charmer, isn't he?"

_Persephone._

The woman flips her midnight hair over her shoulder, slinking towards them. She is lanky like her husband with a strong form that towers over both Emma and Graham, leaving her wary of just what exactly the woman's abilities include—and what her exact intentions are.

She isn't sure if they can possibly be good.

"Don't be _frightened _of me," she mutters and rolls her eyes with an adept flutter of her long lashes. Emma doesn't know if she is flirting with her or with Graham, the way she looks quickly back and forth between them.

She does know that the object of her affections is _clearly _not her husband.

She takes a chance.

"Not sure how you landed such a catch," she drenches her words with sarcasm, eyes trained firmly for her reaction.

There is nothing.

And then her lips twitch into one of those sly smirks that Emma is beginning to quickly associate with her.

"I like you, darling," she says with authority, stopping as near as Hades stood (almost exactly).

But Emma knows that she still has the upper hand.

The thought brings the slightest smile drifting to her face.

"He doesn't know you brought them back, does he?" She keeps her tone playful and short and smiles even bigger when Persephone balks, eyes widening.

_Yes._

"How—"

"She's quite perceptive," Graham speaks up now, and she can't help but grin with self-satisfaction.

_She is capable._

"Just so we all know where we stand," she says slowly, making sure Persephone hangs on to every word fearfully.

It's a dangerous game she's playing and she knows it.

But she is in control.

xxxxxxxxxx

When they arrive back at the station she does not even get a look around before Killian is upon her, twisting his arms around her waist and pulling her against him. He buries his nose and lips in the hair that falls at her neck, breathing her in deeply and making her shiver and press nearer to him.

"Killian what's—"

He swallows her words hungrily with his lips and the last thing she sees before she drifts into the kiss is Graham, scratching his forehead and looking away.

_God, she loves Killian._

She pulls back after a moment, allowing him a straying gentle press of his lips to hers one final time before she frees her fingers from his hair and presses her thumb gently to his chin, meeting his eyes apologetically.

She wants to keep kissing him more than anything, but everyone is shifting awkwardly about them and it takes all her discipline to keep from continuing.

"What was that for?" She asks softly, and hears Milah tactfully picking up a conversation with Graham somewhere behind Killian.

_Milah._

"Am I not permitted to express my love for you?" He asks, eyes still trained unhelpfully on her lips.

When they meet hers she wishes his gaze had remained averted, the deep affection in his eyes nearly causing her to drift right back into him.

She uses the last of her remaining strength to let go of him and take a small step away.

"Of course you are," she says, and a smile plays on her lips, "You just took me by surprise is all."

_She loves him so much._

They only need to get through this, just this one final challenge, and she'll be able to kiss him as much as they see fit.

There just always seems to be another battle facing them, one after another.

A throat is cleared melodically behind her and she gives a slight start, swiftly recalling the exact reason for their return to the station.

"Is this another soul?" Killian asks as his eyes fall on the newest recruit, single brow shooting up quizzically.

"Ah, no," Emma mutters, biting her lip and contemplating a moment before deciding that there is no _easy _way to say this. "Uh, Hades payed us a visit at the library. This… this is his wife Persephone."

She steps aside, watching the other woman grin flirtatiously at Killian.

"You certainly surround yourself with dashing men," she says sideways to Emma, as if the whole room isn't listening.

"Persephone," she carries on as if she didn't speak, which fails to even dampen her smile, "This is my _boyfriend _Killian."

She feels ridiculous at the possessiveness that swells within her, but the way she lingers on his title makes Killian smirk and only then does she realize that his damn eyes have hardly left her but to glance momentarily at Persephone.

His unwavering attention returned only to _her_ fills her with warmth that she knows is selfish—but she cannot care less.

"I imagine the King of Hell wishes for us to return his souls, then?" Killian presses, and Emma is brought jerkily back to the moment as she nods once.

She can't bring herself to tell him the rest of the threat she's been left with, fingers drifting again over where he'd touched her stomach. She still feels the cold within her, even if the area is now warm to the touch.

"He wants them by sundown," Graham speaks up as another uneasy silence falls over them and Emma nods but Killian's attentions are elsewhere—anxious blue eyes centered on what lies past her fingers.

"What did he do?"

His voice is soft but takes on an edge of panic as he looks up, studying her expression. She isn't sure what made her think she could hide anything from him. Graham and Milah shift at his words, becoming attentive.

"What did he _do to you, _Emma?" His jaw is clenched, fierce and protective as he reaches forward and brushes beneath her fingers to feel gently across her stomach.

His fingers are _shaking._

"He didn't hurt your child, don't get your panties in a twist," Persephone speaks lazily, bored almost, and Emma lets out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. The fear in Killian's expression eases just slightly, but he watches the other woman closely.

"But?"

She lets out a lingering, long suffering sigh and Emma glances at her. She's studying her fingernails distractedly.

"You don't happen to have a good salon in this little town? One thing I failed to do my thorough research on, unfortunately."

When she looks up a mischievous smile plays at her lips and she stares directly at Killian.

_She's egging him on._

"What did he do to her?" Milah sees what she is doing at the same moment Emma does, stepping forward as Emma places a restraining hand on his chest, unsure of what exactly the woman is playing towards.

She can feel the pounding of his heart through all his layers of leather.

"His touch lingers," Persephone shrugs, eyes widening innocently at the obvious lie. "Chilly, darling?"

Killian tenses further but Emma speaks before he can.

"I won't tell him," she mutters, trying not to let the defeat subdue her, "You have my word that I will not tell Him what you did. Just please tell me what's wrong with me."

The other woman's eyes narrow, the first honest reaction she's seen from her so far. She doesn't look away as she ponders her words—and she thinks she catches sight of a lost girl hidden somewhere back behind the layers she puts forth.

"How do I know I can trust you? I am no fool, Emma," she says without a hint of her usual dramatic flair.

She has reached _her _beneath the layers.

"He's an asshole," Emma says carefully, and Persephone watches her even closer, "I wouldn't have told him anyway. I just needed something… Needed something to hold over your head."

Her expression shifts instantly back to distant disinterest—but not before Emma catches the vaguest hint of relief.

"He's placed a locator on you. So you can't run. Don't feel particularly special, either," she runs a hand through her silky hair, settling it above her heart, "He gives 'em to all the girls."

Emma stares at her with confusion.

"Why the _hell _would I run?" She asks, brow furrowed.

He is a _God. _It isn't as if she thinks she'll stand a chance not following his orders down to the word.

"I'm not a _seer_," the woman whines in response, and Emma grinds her teeth in frustration.

They have work to do, and so little time to do it.

The remainder of Hades threat still rings hauntingly in her ears.

_He is not afraid to compensate._

She doesn't doubt him in the least.

"Killian, print a few copies of the census. We don't have much time."

"What are we going to do?" Graham asks tentatively as Killian moves to follow her command, "Go door to door asking about dead people? like some sort of soul collecting girl scouts?"

"That is exactly what we're going to do," she answers, and offers a wry smile that she knows does not meet her eyes.

They don't have any other choice.

xxxxxxxxxx

No one will admit to anything and no one will sell out anyone else, and Emma is growing more frantic by the moment and Persephone's words on running are beginning to become far more clear to her.

They have been out trodding from house to house in the bitter snow all goddamn day. She cannot feel her fingers or her nose and more than once Killian tries to convince her to take a break and allow him to take over her area of the canvassing. He is concerned, she can see it in every line of his face.

No one but Graham thoroughly understands her drive.

"It'll be okay," he tells her when their paths meet along the way. She taps her foot anxiously as he speaks but when he sees, he only speaks slower, "He may be a God of death but in all the research we did I learnt plenty about him. He can't just take a soul, Emma. Unless it is it's time or he is given explicit permission by the owner, he cannot take a soul. He can't very well take your agency, can he?"

His words do not comfort her in the least. Their research was in _myths._

Her anxiety increases with every door slammed in her face, until the sky is painted in dusty hues of pink and purple and they've canvassed the _entire town._

No one has given up their loved ones.

Persephone is notably absent from their small huddle in the library. They are all running noses and stiff fingers and fallen spirits and no one seems to care to speak.

It is _over._

"You don't suppose he'll be willing to accept our souls as a bit of a down payment?" Graham tries after a while, and a fresh wave of pain goes over Emma.

_All day _he's done nothing but work tirelessly back towards his death. To secure her future with another man. She blinks back the tears that suddenly burn her eyes.

"Did he seem the bargaining type to you?" She retorts stiffly. She cannot look at him.

Can't think about all that he has done for her.

Killian will lose his second child in less than a day.

Graham and Milah will lose their lives yet again.

_She's failed everyone._

It's as if the thought summons him. A now familiar pop startles through the silence and Killian steps nearer to her, hand immediately slipping warm and protective over her stomach, a gesture that is growing far too common. He is going to _break_. It is her fault. She should've been able to find a couple of ghosts.

_She shouldn't have goaded Him._

He appears now in his full, towering form, and she swears that he looks _gleeful._

"You did not succeed."

The simple words boom in her ears and send her stomach into frantic flips.

"You are wrong. We—" Milah nods sideways at Graham, "Are prepared to re-accept our fate."

As she stares the man down, guilt coils even tighter within her and she thinks she might be sick.

Hades studies Milah, that same lingering and intrusive way as he'd studied she and Graham earlier, and a slippery smile works its way across his face.

"Yes, you are one of mine, aren't you," he agrees, stepping languidly towards her.

She looks over her shoulder as he does, eyes settling first on her and the solace on her face cracks at Emma's composure.

It isn't _fair._

"Take care of him," she says briefly with a comforting smile that does anything but soothe.

When Milah looks at Killian she says nothing, but his fingers clench more tightly against Emma's stomach and she reaches to tangle her fingers firmly around his against where he holds her. She forces herself to watch as the King of Hell extends a knobby finger to her shoulder.

His white skin meets hers, and as if a light has gone out, she crumples hard to the floor, body crumbling to scattering dust as it makes contact.

Killian turns his head at the last possible moment, pressing his forehead heavily into Emma's shoulder and taking a sharp breath when he hears the solid thump of her body landing.

The twitching smile upon Hades' face is _sickening._

"You'll not hurt her then," Graham says from beside her, voice shaking, "You'll not hurt her if I come as well?"

"You have my word."

"Graham—" His name rises to her lips but suddenly everything that wants to follow seems utterly _useless. _

_Thanks for sacrificing your soul for me._

_Thanks for dying for my child._

_Thanks… for you know._

She swallows hard, and feels Killian's lips pressed comfortingly to her shoulder.

"I wish you hadn't died, too."

The words taste bitter and his smile is dry as he faces her, taking her hand carefully in his, running his fingers up her palm and tangling them into the frayed leather that is her last connection to him.

He gives it a gentle tug and it pulls loose.

"You don't need this," he breathes and her heart stutters. Her wrist feels naked without the familiar worn bracelet and she bites her lip, hard. Giving herself something to focus on that isn't tears. "You've spent the whole day protecting people. Successfully."

He smiles again, and this time it just touches the gray of his eyes.

She _could've _loved him.

She does not.

Still, as Hades reaches for him she allows Killian to gather her shaking form to his pounding chest, pressing her tears into his shirt as she hears him drop. His body does not hit the ground, and she assumes her crumbles as Milah did. The thought raises a searing sob in her throat and she presses nearer to Killian. His hand carefully cradles the back of her head as she fights to regain her composure, buried against him. Borrowing some strength back from him. Breathing shaky sighs and assuring herself again and again that it is over. That the worst is over.

_The worst is over._

_It is over._

"This is not over, Miss Swan."

His chilling voice is far too close and she drags herself from Killian to stare at him, heart positively _pounding_. She pulls her hands off of him, twisting them across her stomach instead.

"We gave you everyone we had," she snaps, though her voice quivers, "We have nothing else to give and I swear to _god _if you hurt our child—"

Killian tenses sharply beside her.

"Your _child_?" One pale eyebrow shoots up Hades' forehead.

Killian moves steadily forward, tangling his fingers in hers as he places himself solidly in front of her.

She lets him, just as she let Graham earlier.

"You can bloody have me before you touch them," he growls, and for a moment, everything seems to stand still.

He can't just take a soul.

Unless he is given explicit permission by the owner.

"Can I?" The frozenness of his voice mixed with the realization crashing upon her is enough to send nearly debilitating chills echoing through her body. "That is all I wanted to hear."

_Killian._

He is reaching for him before she can even begin to move.

"_No!"_

Time doesn't stand still.

But as he falls, all she hears is her heart thudding frantically after him.

He hits the floor limply and she falls to her knees after him, vision blurred.

_This cannot be happening._

_He can't be…_

"Killian!" She sobs his name, clutching at his shirt, brimming eyes on his face.

_His_ eyes are open and their stunning blue is already dulling to a flat gray that makes nausea rise within her. _Lifeless._

"Bring him back," she looks up, searching frantically for the stretching form of Hades, dragging her lip painfully between her teeth to try to swallow her sobs. "He wasn't yours to take. Bring… bring him back!"

His eyes twinkle.

"I am afraid I don't do refunds, Miss Swan."

He offers her a final fleeting twist of a smirk before a pop leaves her alone.

Tears are overflowing onto her cheeks and the sobs she meant to swallow come back with a vengeance. The hollow desolation in the pit of her stomach is like nothing else she has ever felt and threatens to swallow her whole as she drops herself weakly to his stiff chest, pressing her fingers along his arm for his pulse point despite what _common sense _has already told her.

_He can't be… not Killian._

There are too many laters, too many waits and too much put off. _She'd _stopped their last kiss with a thumb to his chin, never thinking for a moment, never even bothering to consider that later might not have been an option. And now she will never feel him pressed comfortingly to her again. Never taste his mouth on hers. Never feel his fingers press carefully over her stomach where their child grows.

_Killian stays with her._

He will never be a father. She will never see his bright eyes light up at the birth of their child, never fall to pieces as she watches him hold her close and murmur whispered assurances in her tiny ears. Never watch his lips press sweetly to her forehead and never kiss him in turn, falling deeper in love with him through the life they created.

_Killian is a survivor._

She can't lose him. There is too much hanging on them and him and too much left unsaid. She cannot stand for him to join the what if's. He is _not _a what if.

Everyone. She loses everyone.

Even him.

xxxxxxxxxx

She does not hear Persephone enter.

"It seems I missed my husband, then?"

She has not moved; laid draped over Killian's body until she'd cried herself to oblivion, and then even more. He was cold to her touch now but she felt as much a corpse as he is.

Hearing the other woman's voice raises a new life within her. A stretching hope. She takes a quivering breath, peeling herself off of him and locating Persephone with her still blurred gaze.

She cringes at the sight of her tear-swollen face.

"You've come out worse for the wear, haven't you?"

"You _knew,_" she hisses, voice raw.

She shrugs halfheartedly and it brings Emma raging to her feet.

"Bring him back. Use your goddamn plant heart and bring him back," she orders hoarsely, moving threateningly towards her on shaky legs. She watches her uneasily and Emma continues, "I kept your secret and this is where it got me," she snaps, and she is on the edge of hysterics all over again.

_Gone._

"He took his soul, not his heart," Persephone mutters, attention on her nails now instead of Emma. They are a fresh, startling shade of green that plants even more rage in Emma.

She lets out a dry laugh that she thinks likely borders on hysterical.

"You got your nails done while your husband murdered the man I _love_."

_She loves him, she loves him, she loves him, she loves him._

She never said it enough.

"Tell me how to get him back."

She will do anything. To the ends of the earth and beyond.

"You're not going to like it," she answers, voice sing-songy and repulsive, "No man is worth this much misery, honey."

Another dry laugh catches in her throat.

"He is. He is worth everything."

_She loves him, she loves him, she loves him, she loves him, she loves him._

Persephone rolls her eyes, but watches her carefully in silence a moment before speaking.

"I can get your soul to Hell but getting his and getting out will be entirely on you."

He isn't gone.

"It's a long shot, Emma," she continues, and her eyes fall to her stomach, "And I can't tell you what'll happen to your body while you are… out."

She twists her fingers warily into the material above her stomach and breathes in slowly, the crushing impossibility of the decision she is facing making her feel dizzy at the prospect of all that needs to be accomplished.

Persephone _doesn't know._ If she does nothing he is gone.

It would _ruin _him to know just how swiftly she makes her decision.

"Take me to him," she breathes.

When she wakes, it is to the bleakest darkness she has ever known.

Hell is _cold._

**(Readers-I am a filthy liar. I lied even to myself by saying that this story was over. There are more chapters coming. This is the truth. I love you all so much for reading this and leaving me all your sweet reviews. I hope I can continue to write something you will enjoy!)**


	8. Chapter 8

**Slight tw with this chapter: if you are uncomfortable with characters dealing with suicidal thoughts this does include a touch of it.** As always, I cannot thank you all enough for reading this and leaving all these sweet reviews. I have become a little addicted to reading them! I love hearing from you all and I hope you enjoy this next bit!

* * *

><p>She wakes on icy stone and the first thing she sees is Persephone. The other woman stands tall over her, staring disdainfully down at her.<p>

She is so _cold._

"I thought you said I was on my own," she mutters, reaching to gingerly rub her fingers along the bruised back of her head as she pulls herself stiffly to a sitting position, glancing down at herself.

She _seems _alive enough, still in the same clothes she'd passed through in. She raises a hand to stare at and aside from being painted in raised goose bumps—it seems to be exactly her skin.

It is not at all what she expected, despite being completely unsure of what she _did _expect.

She just expected something… deader.

Persephone rolls her eyes and slowly extends a hand that Emma watches warily.

"You wouldn't stand a chance without me, honey," she answers, and nods, annoyed at her expectant hand. "Are you going to let me help you or are you going to commit to your death?"

Emma stares at the woman a moment, brow furrowed as she tries to puzzle her together.

"Why would you walk willingly back into this hellhole to help me?"

(The truth of the term _hellhole _is not lost on her but the fact that she is in the goddamn underworld is more than a bit overwhelming and she can't waver on it without risking losing any semblance of sanity she has clung to.

It is for _him. _There is nothing she won't do to get him back.

It leads her to thinking of him again. Cold and stiff and _lifeless_ and wrongly cold tears ache in her eyes.

The emptiness of his loss seems to expand in the dark expanse until it is all she feels. The entire atmosphere, every breath she takes is nothing but crippling, hollowing misery.

She needs him).

Persephone's eyes are set on her and the annoyance has faded to a brief whisper deep within her expression, exchanged for something far softer. Something that is nearly compassion.

"You don't think I sold my soul to Hades for a piece of fruit do you, Emma?" She answers, a slight quiver of contained emotion dragging at her otherwise carefully steady tone. She studies Emma slowly, purposefully. "You'd better be damn sure about this man. It isn't too late to go back."

She is far beyond certain. Her eyes fall to Persephone's extended hand, fingers reaching.

She takes a breath and wraps her fingers around her startling warm wrist.

"Take me to him," she says firmly, raising her eyes to meet Persephone's. The other woman nods, just discernibly, before tugging Emma to her feet and motioning behind her with another slight movement of her head.

Emma follows her direction dizzily, turning to take in what she assumes will be another expanse of darkness behind her. She assumes wrong.

"I hope you know how to row a boat."

She would call it a river but the water that fills it is not natural. It is pale and moves lazily, grasping sluggishly at the shorelines and dragging back sharply. A heavy fog covers it, and the opposite shore appears the exact same as where they stand.

"Can't I just… zap us across?" Emma attempts tentatively, and Persephone laughs—a sharp, biting noise that sounds more like a weapon than a sound of joy. Emma bites her lip, glancing over her shoulder at the woman.

"I'm afraid the only entry is downriver. My husband does not care for magical shortcuts."

"Rich coming from a guy who popped around my town in little bursts of pollution," she mumbles to herself, but Persephone hears and laughs again.

"You're on his turf now, Emma."

Her initial suspicions about the river are chillingly confirmed as they move nearer to it.

The waves are not formed of water at all.

Translucent forms glide smoothly about one another, shifting in and out of view. They move like liquid but look something more like fog as they slide amongst each other. They all move fluidly towards the shore, reaching with grasping hands to clutch, tortured by the edges that are just within their reach—only to be dragged swiftly back under.

Emma inhales sharply and stops abruptly.

"Afraid of a few lost souls?" Persephone asks, stopping beside her and glancing sideways at her with a crooked grin. "Just don't allow them to get ahold of you and you'll be fine."

The woman moves forward without Emma, and reveals a small paddleboat with the slightest flick of her wrist.

"Excuse me?"

"It's a boat," she explains wryly, not turning to face Emma, "I was under the impression the man we're after was a pirate? I'd assume you'd know what this is."

Emma grinds her teeth in frustration, willing herself to move forward into the fog—but again seeing the tangled arms and fingers grabbing at the shore she feels frozen in place.

"I was referring to the part about not letting the souls 'get ahold of me'," she hisses through clenched teeth, eyes trained on the hands piling upon each other near where Persephone stands. She catches her smirk from the corner of her eye.

"They all crave life," she informs her steadily, holding an oar in her direction, "I'm afraid the two of us stink wretchedly of it."

"Oh."

It's all Emma can mutter, unsure of how exactly to continue the conversation. The other woman is rusty in her conversing at best, but she tries to remind herself that she spends six months of every year in a very real Hell. She cannot imagine there are many warm bodies around to talk with and she tries not to blame the woman for her callousness as she takes a steadying breath and forces herself forward, taking the oar with a hand that certainly is not visibly shaking.

She tries to keep her eyes averted from the creeping arms but the only thing as far as she can see is the translucent waves of the river.

"Don't tell me you're frightened," Persephone moans, and Emma finds that she has been studying her—and rolls her eyes when she glances sheepishly her way.

She isn't sure how anyone _couldn't _be at least a little disconcerted by the tortured souls.

"If you act as if it's only water it is far easier."

Persephone doesn't let go of the oar, staring Emma carefully down with that strange look of understanding.

"Water it is then," Emma says, tugging the corners of her lips into a tight smile that likely appears as more of a grimace as she creeps forward until she can step gingerly into the little rowboat.

Again, Persephone only watches.

"They can sense your fear," she says, voice regaining a sharp tone. "I will not risk my life in that boat until you get yourself under control.

Emma throws her arms up, frustrated even if she is only trying to help.

"I'm fine. I got in your stupid boat and I'm _fine_."

Nausea is building in the pit of her stomach at the thought of what is behind her and she is anything but _fine._

"We'll never make it across with that attitude," Persephone snaps, crossing her arms and leaning firmly back into place. Emma shifts uncomfortably in the creaking boat. "I can tell by their behavior that you are frightened. You cannot lie. If you want to save _him _you'll need to make it across in one piece."

She breathes another heavy, calming breath and allows her eyes to drift shut—focusing her mind to him. Tuning the gentle lilt of his voice to her ears and the soft brush of his calloused fingers to her skin. Emma feels the boat creak again and lowers to where she feels a seat at her heels, certain her knuckles are white around the oar she clutches like a lifeline.

Him.

She can do it for him.

She can do it to get him back for _herself._

"Perhaps if your eyes were _open _you could help me row." Persephone's voice tears through her reverie and she forces her heavy lids open, shocked to find that the river has stilled near entirely, all the separate souls now melted into one-now in appearance something more like an oddly shifting cloud. Persephone sits across from her in the little dingy, smirking against all odds.

"I told you they knew you were scared," she says, dragging the oar through the still fog, "They used to terrify me as well. I learned the hard way that the only way to cross with no trouble was to quit worrying for my life. Nice failsafe, really. To ensure only the dead enter."

She laughs dryly and Emma tries not to think about him, nothing but a shifting, floating grey cloud being dragged into the endless depths of other identically nameless blobs.

"He isn't here," Persephone says after a moment, as if reading her mind. "Styx is reserved for the souls with broken debts to Him. Usually souls He's taken that haven't obeyed his every command. It's His… storage, if you will. He prefers to keep them in limbo. To not give them rest."

She studies her nails distractedly against her oar as she speaks but Emma is beginning to see the cracks in the other woman's façade.

As much as she hopes to convince people otherwise—to hide what she sees as a weakness—the Queen of Hell _cares._

Emma shifts her oar, watching how Persephone carefully dips and drags hers and does her best to imitate the motion.

She smiles, soft and genuine.

"Now we're getting somewhere."

The further they travel down the river, a more intense and overwhelming feeling of empty loneliness fills her. It is nearly _throbbing_ within her, reaching in tendrils from the pit of her stomach outward.

She wants to stop rowing and curl in on herself until the end of time.

"Feeling shitty?"

The ever-eloquent voice of Persephone drifts from what feels like miles away, and with a start Emma comes back to—realizing she has indeed stopped rowing, despite the image her mind had painted.

She looks around, startled, catching the breath she did not realize she'd been holding.

"What the _hell_," she mutters, rubbing angrily at her betraying eyes. They ache, as if she's been watching television too long.

She isn't sure how far they've travelled, but their surroundings appear _identical _no matter how much she rows.

It is ridiculously disorienting.

"Safeguards," Persephone answers with a shrug. "My dear husband is not a fan of living visitors. Aren't you glad I took pity on you and came along?"

She smiles bright and sarcastic, and nods to her oar.

"Keep rowing, sunshine."

She won't admit just how glad she is, nearly sick at the thought of floating mindlessly along the river for the rest of eternity. She shivers as she digs her oar back into the souls.

Hell is goddamn _twisted._

She prays it is far easier for the already dead to make it through and that she hasn't misplaced her hope in the other woman.

"You say you didn't trade your soul to Hades for fruit," she says, staring at the other woman more to distract herself than anything else, "So… what did you trade it for?"

She thinks she knows the answer, and the briefest moment of softness that passes over Persephone's face is all the confirmation she needs.

"A guy?" She asks, trying and certainly failing to sound disinterested. Her face falls and Emma immediately tries to compensate. "Hey, I've made some awful judgments over guys in my life too. Hall of fame including but certainly not limited to giving my heart to a guy who in turn gave me a kid and a ticket to jail."

Persephone regards her with confusion etched into her brow.

"You have no heart?"

Oh.

"Uh, no. I do. Have a heart, I mean. It was a figure of, er, speech?"

She's only trying to connect with her but she shouldn't have even put forth the extra effort because now she is thinking about Neal and how now, officially, every single person she has been with has died.

She thinks the world is probably trying to tell her she is meant to be alone but for the first time in her life, she couldn't give a damn about what the world wants for her.

It is her life (technically _was_) and she wants Killian.

"He's dead? The one who figuratively took your heart?" Persephone asks.

_She is trying to connect with her now._

Emma thinks a moment before opening her mouth this time to speak as straightforward as she can manage.

"Yeah. He is."

Persephone's eyes fall, studying the river now.

"He left you for another woman first?"

It suddenly all makes sense.

"You traded your soul to rescue a man who left you," she realizes out loud, biting her tongue once the words have freed themselves.

Persephone lets out a heavy breath.

"I was young and foolish," she defends in a soft voice that does not seem to match her at all. "He told me he loved me."

Sadness pangs in Emma's heart.

"It's hard not to believe 'I love you' the first time you hear it," Emma relates, thinking of brown eyes and whispered promises that were never meant to be kept. She swallows hard and averts her gaze as Persephone wipes the back of her hand across her face as she nods.

"I promised Hades my soul and my hand, so long as he freed him. He was a mere mortal. He would've been stuck for eternity. He never even came looking after me."

She stares at her now with meaning and question and Emma bites her lip at her sadness. At her wounds that would never be filled.

"Killian is different," she tells her, voice catching in her throat. "He… he's followed me to the ends of the earth. He says 'I love you' and means it."

Persephone shakes her head sadly, refusing to meet her eyes.

"You always think they mean it, Emma. I've lived quite a long time. More often than not, all 'I love you's' end the same. How do you _know_? How can you ever know?" She's reduced her to a tight grimace that is quite odd upon her usually bright face, and she swallows.

It isn't in the words.

It isn't in the 'I love you's'.

It is in the way he looks at her, as if she is brighter than any constellation that leads him home. Like she is the most precious treasure on earth, with such disbelief and caution, as if she can't possibly be _real _and in his arms. It is in the way he touches her with such deep reverence and care. It is how he touches her gently enough that he nearly worships her and fiercely enough to make her feel _everything_ when she is with him. It is in the way he trusts her more thoroughly than he trusts himself. In the way he stands not in front of her but at her back, defending her where she cannot possibly do it all. In how his arms are already around her before she even realizes she needs him, in how his kisses consume her and in how enraptured he is with her every move. It is how he's touched her stomach in the few hours he's known of what is growing there—how enchanted he already is with the child he has yet to meet.

It is in everything he does and _no they are not a couple who uses _'I love you' so often, because they are not a couple who needs to.

The words are written in how they chase each other across time and earth and even life. In everything they do.

"You know when you don't have to say it."

The words slip from her so naturally and she surprises herself, wondering when exactly she became such an expert on love. Her eyes are brimming with tears thinking of him again and she doesn't know how it's possible to miss someone so damn much… she simultaneously knows it is because it is _him._

Persephone is staring over her head, expression still tense and eyes still moist, but she nods behind her.

"We're here," she tells her, and Emma isn't sure if she imagines the catch in her voice or not, "Welcome to Hell."

xxxxxxxxxx

He has imagined death for over 300 stretching years of life.

Death never began as something that he particularly called to mind or thought consciously of—instead, it was just a drifting reality that existed alongside the ocean surely lapping at the shore and his mother waking him to the scent of burnt biscuits every morning. People were born and grew old and died, simple as that. He was a child and death is never such a reality in the mind of a young boy.

When his mother died, everything changed.

He thought often of death, then. Wondering if she was happy when she passed, trying to discover whether or not she might've felt pain as she slipped from the earth… he was hurting, yes. And these questions trying to define her final moments were his way of coping in a household where his father only knew healing by the flask of rum. Even his perfect levelheaded elder brother lost control in the form of fighting with other boys in town, until their father had enough of the complaints and forced him off to join the navy—Killian saw him so little that he decided he may as well have been dead to him as well.

Death, when Killian was young, was loss.

When his father abandoned him, he learned it was far more complicated than that.

He sailed with Liam a while and his relationship with death again felt irrelevant. He still mourned the loss of his mum but he thought little of it otherwise—he was young and untouchable, left relatively unscarred in spite of the woes of his life. He had his brother whom he loved dearly, a ship that was their home and the world in the palm of his hand. They were unstoppable, the Jones brothers. Not even death could come between them.

Until it did.

When Liam died gasping in Killian's arms, death was misery. Death was losing everything and being forced to improvise your way back to stability. Death was being helpless.

He sailed under the pirates flag and he thought of death often. Thought of one night stands and not creating ties, thought of distance and walls and keeping anything that could scar his broken state further at arm's length. He thought of protecting himself and thought of never feeling such hopelessness again.

He met Milah just when he was growing weary of his loveless life, just when he was craving a real human connection and she was everything to him. She was life and adventure and making the world bright again, one shining dream at a time. She was so _alive_ and he wanted nothing more than to feed the flames that burned within her.

When he lost Milah, death was pain and loneliness and vengeance.

A day did not pass that he did not think of death. He was cursed with life, cursed with waking up breathing every bloody day in a land where he couldn't even grow old, where he did not even have a hope of locating the man he now lived for. No hope of digging the hooked end of his still-throbbing stub of his arm into his blasted chest and watching the life drain from his eyes.

It was within the loneliness of these years that he turned to rum, same as his father and he hated himself for every sip of the sloshing amber liquid, hated himself for trying to drink the pain away and hated himself for becoming the man his father was. He saw his drunken father every time he looked in a mirror and it brought any relief the alcohol might've brought crashing down.

He drank more to drown the added misery.

There were plenty of days, more than he cared to admit, that he thought about burying his hook into his own chest. Wondered how it might feel, as he did when he was young. Wondered if in whatever world followed, whatever adventure came next, he'd finally be reunited with all that he'd lost.

He was not sure how the pain of death could be any worse than the pain of his cursed life.

Death became an escape route that was constantly stuck in the back of his darkened mind.

Then he met Emma and everything changed. Death was a fear, yes, but he _loved _her and the emotion led his old bones to feel young and invincible all over again. No matter what bloody beast was attacking them, so long as she was at his back death was forced far from his mind.

With Emma, _he was alive._

He did not think about death again.

And then, after all his years, he _dies_.

It is not anything he came to expect over the years. It is fast and he thinks he is lucky to feel no pain, thinks he is lucky not to be stuck gasping for air or have his heart torn from him. It is a mere touch and his soul is freed from his body.

He didn't think about death as he died.

He thought about her.

He only caught a flash of the broken terror in her eyes, the horrifying realization of the moment etched in her face as she clutched weakly towards him.

The fear in her eyes in that split second was enough to make him regret every damned moment he ever wished for exactly this end.

He wakes up to the scent of burnt biscuits.


	9. Chapter 9

This time when I tell you that only one chapter after this remains, I say it with a heavy heart and a definite skeleton set for the ending. I cannot tell you all how much all the support you have shown means to me- I've said it before and I'll say it again; this story would be nothing without it's readers. You are who bring life to this and I owe you all my gratitude. Thank you, thank you and thank you again. I hope you enjoy these last couple of bits.

* * *

><p>"He'll be capable of sensing our presences, now," Persephone says, distracted and not nearly as concerned by the comment as Emma thinks she likely should be.<p>

They've just passed beneath a towering rock structure—a very physical gate into hell that Emma shockingly could not see until they were practically upon it. Now safely, comfortably back on steady shore, it is cloaked in fog again.

Fog and darkness is _everywhere._

It isn't the first time she is glad for Persephone's guidance.

"Should we be worried?" Emma asks uneasily, glancing around. She doesn't particularly feel as if she is being watched, but she's learned through the years that magic is capable of cloaking nearly anything.

She does not trust her gut. Not in Hell.

Persephone shrugs halfheartedly, finally turning her attentions to Emma.

"He is probably not paying attention. He'll be… entertaining… the new guests."

The way _entertaining_ curls from her tongue is icy and bitter and it makes Emma's stomach clench. Her startled fear must show in her expression, because Persephone rolls her eyes distantly.

"It's _Hell_, honey," she tells her, voice pressing dangerously on bothered. "There aren't welcome baskets and spa treatments."

She isn't sure why she hasn't considered this before, and the thought of him suffering makes her feel physically ill. She _needs _to find him, even more frantically now than before. He'd experienced enough suffering in life. She hates that his pain might be revived upon his death.

"Are we almost there?" She asks shakily instead of responding.

Persephone shrugs again, eyes shooting over her shoulders.

"Just a bit of a walk from here. But if I'm to return to distract my husband, you'll have to trek it alone."

Emma swallows, turning to peer out over the stretching expanse. There again is only fog, as far as she can manage to see.

"What am I looking for?" She asks her with faux strength, quietly praying she won't lose herself wandering across the expanse the way she had on the styx.

The thought makes her shiver.

"That, darling, depends on you."

xxxxxxxxxx

The time after the Swan's had returned her had been the worst, the conditions of the home she'd been brought to was an absolute hell.

It was a bad home, yes.

But what was worse was the overwhelming, aching knowledge that she was not good enough. That she would never be someone's real child. That she was destined, forever, to be alone.

It was in the dank, grey halls of that home that she'd vowed to herself she'd never be adopted again. That she'd never believe the sham that was the promise of love and care again. It was there that she realized how truly, irrevocably alone she was.

It was there she taught herself to accept it.

She would know its crumbling outer walls anywhere, and when the shape begins to appear out of the fog… she isn't sure how she did not see it coming.

If anywhere is her personal hell, it is this home. She very nearly admires Hades absolute dedication to serving his every client's needs so perfectly.

She wonders how it appeared to Killian. Perhaps the ship his father left him on, or the streets he made his home in his youth. She thinks it could be Neverland.

It could even be his childhood home, she thinks achingly.

She hates herself for not knowing.

It's all a smokescreen, really, to keep her from considering her own nightmare facing her.

She doesn't want to go back in.

She is at the door now, and when she reaches for the handle her hand is shaking.

"_You'll find a home too, Emma."_

She didn't _want _a goddamn home. She wanted to be alone and not form connections and if she'd only kept to that she wouldn't now be in the depths of Hell searching out a man that may or may not have been willing to do the same for her.

_Shut up. Shut up. Of course he'd do the same for her. He practically has. _

The voice in her head is sinister and calculating and turning her against herself and she tries to drown it out.

_She loves him. She loves him. She loves him._

_Would anyone in the town even miss her, truly? Her parents would be relieved they didn't have her issues to deal with anymore. Neal is getting older and he is all they ever wanted but never had. They do not need her. They do not want her._

_Storybrooke is her home._

She is clenching her teeth so hard it hurts and she has curled her fingers into a white-knuckled fist to stop them from shaking.

It's her own personalized hell talking and she knows it, bringing back the bits of her from the darkest portion of her past.

But it's still _her _talking and she cannot drown it out completely, cannot ignore it as fully as she wishes to.

She knows how _she _feels.

She makes valid points.

_He loves her._

She loves him.

She takes a breath that feels like it only suffocates her further, forcing herself forward and twisting her white fingers around the icy cold handle. She drags it open in the same movement, afraid that if she stops now she'll never complete the task.

The loneliness that crashes out past the doorway feels drowning and she gasps for air as it wraps painfully around her, making her it's unwitting captive.

She ignores the cries in her mind and forces herself forward, feeling for anything else, any other sense within her besides crippling loneliness that might lead her to him.

For a moment there is nothing. Malevolent whispers and icy cries echo in her mind and she closes her eyes tight and squeezes her fists close to her chest. Her magic is bubbling up within her—she feels it tugging angrily at her heart but she focuses everything on it to keep it in, to keep herself _normal_.

"_No one wants to adopt a _freak_, Emma."_

The tugging only grows and when its force causes her to stumble forward, a moment of clarity hits her.

Her magic is looking for _him._

_It is leading her._

The tugging starts up again and she takes a hesitant step in the direction it leads her, biting her lip. It lets up a moment then comes back only stronger. It is like a balloon tied to her wrist, reaching for the sky—but this string is attached somewhere deep within her, and it tugs her gently, carefully through gray halls that make her headache.

It drags her up a flight of stairs and past the off-limit offices she'd known so well. Further and deeper and she is only growing more anxious until finally it takes her to an all-too-familiar door. The room _she'd _stayed in, with a handful of other young orphan girls.

The feeling of loneliness and helplessness has only intensified and she hopes on everything that behind it is _him._

But she is not prepared for what awaits her on the other side of the door.

She throws it open and he is _there _and _alive _and she nearly runs to him, nearly throws herself into his arms, except when his eyes land on her… that is all they do.

It is not the room that she remembers. The floor is suddenly dirt, the walls wooden and crumbling. There is a single molding hay cot in one corner, and a cold fireplace in the other.

The only other thing there is Killian, looking young and small and helpless, _both hands _held in white-knuckled fists at his sides. His eyes are on her, but no joy, no relief, no _recognition_, flutters to life within them.

Instead, he looks terrified.

She is prepared for the twinkle of life that lives within him. The tenderness that lights his gaze every time their blue sights have fallen upon her since the moment they met.

There is no flicker of love. No flame lit, no softening or gentle care.

There is _nothing _in the once achingly familiar blue depths of his eyes, and the emptiness is nearly worse than his death itself.

His look is not alive.

And then there is the _fear_.

"Please, no," his voice is small and broken and he steps backwards, away from her- the fear replacing itself with sudden, terrifying tears.

For a heartstopping moment, she thinks he doesn't want her, and whatever spell is set upon the room grows stronger, nearly a cackle of triumph, that brings her back.

It is _Killian_. Of course he wants her.

"Not Emma, too," he is pleading, eyes searching frantically about the room in a practiced and defeated way that tells her he _knows _there is no exit. That he has tried time after time to find one. That he desperately, direly wishes for a way out. That whatever shares the room with him is _destroying_ him. "Please, not her as well."

She takes a careful step into the room and he moves more frenziedly away, pressing his full form hard on the wall opposite. Nearly cowering.

"Please don't force me to watch her perish," he begs to no one in particular, and he will not even look at her.

She is certain her heart shatters painfully in her chest.

The loneliness is all but gone, replaced entirely with concern for him.

"_Killian_," she breathes, moving another step closer and inhaling sharply when he flinches. "Killian, it's _me_. I'm real."

He stares steadily at the ground, and she tries to ignore how tightly his muscles are clenched. How she is now close enough to see the stains of tears on his horrifyingly pale cheeks.

"You _have _to believe me," she begs, and for a moment she considers going back alone. Considers failing.

She _cannot _leave without him.

She reaches shakily forward to touch his arm, leaving her fingers hovering midair when he jerks sharply from her touch.

"Torture me with the blasted faces of the past," he growls, "I've learned how to live with their echoes taunting me. But not her. Do not taunt me with her when I will never see her again."

She inhales deeply to smother the sob creeping up her throat. The lines in his face are agonizing. His few _moments_ in Hell have dragged years from him, drained the life from his eyes. Taken him from her.

She clenches her teeth and takes a jerking step forward, grasping his shoulder gripping tight even when he tries halfheartedly to pull away.

"It's _me _Killian," she says, steady as she can, studying the cheek he's turned sharply to her. "Look at me, Killian," she pleads, reaching with shaking fingers to touch his chin. His skin is cool to her touch. "_Please. _It's _me_."

She is gentle but firm, dragging his chin to face her. Forcing his eyes upon her. She grips his shoulder tighter when they do, still broken, still lifeless, still far from how he looks at her. It makes her stomach turn anxiously and so she _clings_ to him.

It could be the last time.

"_Killian."_

A tear spills from his eyes as his brow furrows, just a slight twitch.

He is focusing in on her eyes, blue on green, reading her like the book she has always been to him.

And then the ice in his eyes shatters.

"_Emma," _he breathes, and she does not even get a good look at him before he is grasping her waist and dragging him near him, burying his lips in that spot where her hair curtains down her neck and _clings _to her. She breathes heavy relief into his hair, cherishing the heavy force of his arms around her, his fingers pressing into her, his lips murmuring small assurances against her skin.

He quivers under her arms and she isn't certain that she doesn't as well.

"I thought I'd lost you," she tells him, freeing her hand from his shoulder to cradle at his scruffy cheek, to drag his eyes to hers again.

The tenderness nearly kills her.

(Or would, she supposes, if she were not already dead).

His fingers slide up her back and into her hair and he bows his forehead to hers. His lips are cold and she makes it her purpose to bring the warmth back to them as she kisses him fervently, clutching at the collar of his shirt, tangling her fingers in his hair and thinking that maybe, she might never let him go.

His fingers play lovingly across her stomach and they both freeze in the same moment, foreheads pressed together, noses brushing.

"Darling… how did you come after me?" He is careful to keep his voice steady as he speaks, though she can hear the meticulously masked quiver. His eyelids are lowered, and she cannot see his eyes.

"Killian…"

"How, Emma?"

When the piercing blue of his eyes finally meets her gaze, she averts it to his lips.

"What did you do?" He doesn't bother to hide his frantic tone now, and she drags herself from his arms, taking a stumbling step back from him.

"I had to come after you," she whispers in an achingly small voice, not pulling from his fierce, lined gaze. "I couldn't lose you."

His lids flutter painfully closed over his eyes, as if they've suddenly become simply too heavy to hold open.

"_Emma._"

"You can't _Emma _me, Killian. Not when you would've done the same damn thing!" She hisses, suddenly fightingly defensive.

"Gods, Emma, I know you are bloody capable of saving me. That's one of the many things I love about you!" He responds angrily, and she cuts him off before he can continue.

"Well, _darling,_" she mutters icily, and his jaw clenches, "Here I am."

She clenches her teeth and rightens her stance, staring him down until his bright eyes reopen and focus in again, brokenly, on her. There is silence a moment before he takes a breath and speaks.

"Milah did not come back pregnant."

_She knows the risks and he knows she knows them._

_She'd done it anyway._

His brow is furrowed over his eyes, again pooling deep with tears, and he can hardly keep them upon her. He breathes in, heavy and deep, and goose bumps trail up her arms.

"I do hope you know the way out?" His voice crumbles as he speaks. But he drops the subject, shocking her. She can see the absolute brokenness in his eyes but he leaves it alone. He leaves it to her judgment. He does not press her.

"Killian…" She starts carefully, and he shakes his head sharply.

"You are correct in saying I am in no place to judge," he tells her in a cracking voice that speaks far more than his words do, "I… I think we ought to just find our way out."

She knows he is only trying to spare her feelings, but she wishes he'd just yell at her instead. She wishes he'd get angry and tell her exactly how he feels rather than store it icily within him. It would hurt far less.

But all she can let matter now is getting them out and back to life without the assistance of Persephone. A sinking feeling in her gut tells her the way out is far more challenging a course than the way in. An uphill battle, as it is.

She hopes on everything that Persephone can keep her husband as distracted as she's promised. She knows they'll need it.


End file.
